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An international team of astronomers has discovered a hot new exoplanet using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Reconnaissance (TESS) satellite.
The newly discovered alien world is almost twice the size of Jupiter and has an asymmetric orbit, and scientists published details of the discovery in a research article published Aug. 25 in arXiv, according to RT.
So-called “hot Jupiters” have characteristics similar to those of the largest planet in the solar system, but have orbital periods of less than 10 days.
These exoplanets have high surface temperatures because they orbit closely with their mother stars.
Now, a group of astronomers led by Samuel HC Cabot of Yale University have reported the discovery of a new such exoplanet, which turned out to have a very high surface temperature, and while observing the bright star TOI-1518 using TESS, a transit signal has been identified in a curve light for this object.
The planetary nature of this signal was confirmed by high-resolution tracking observations using the EXPRES spectrometer from the Lowell Discovery Telescope.
“We present the discovery of TOI-1518b, an ultra-hot Jupiter, orbiting a bright star. The planet in transit has been confirmed using the high-resolution optical transmission spectra of EXPRES,” wrote astronomers in the article.
The radius of TOI-1518b is approximately 1.875 the radius of Jupiter, while its mass is uncertain, and it is estimated that it does not exceed 2.3 the mass of Jupiter.
Monitoring the future radial velocity of this system will provide more details about its mass, as the planet orbits its host every 1.9 days, at a distance of about 0.04 astronomical units from it.
The study found that TOI-1518b has an equilibrium temperature of 2,492 K and a measured daytime light temperature of 3,237 K, indicating that it may exhibit thermal reflection.
However, more spectroscopic observations of this exoplanet are needed to confirm this.
According to the research document, TOI-1518b has a very asymmetric orbit, around 240.34 degrees.
In an attempt to explain this discovery, astronomers noticed that gas giants, which are usually close to each other around hot stars, are asymmetrical. The star TOI-1518 has an effective temperature of about 7300 K, which is about twice as large as the Sun. and has a mass of 1.79 solar mass.
The study also detected the presence of iron (Fe) in the atmosphere of TOI-1518b, and the team performed a cross-correlation analysis in the atmosphere and found neutral iron, and confirmed that until by now there had only been a few earlier discoveries of passing over extremely hot Jupiters.
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