Astronomers have discovered two giant planets, similar in size to Jupiter, that are even lighter than cotton candy. These “super-puffed” planets orbit a star located 1,110 light-years from Earth.
These two planets are among the lightest known exoplanets for their size, with a density lower than that of cotton candy. George Dransfield of the University of Oxford noted that their density is comparable to shaving foam. He and his team published their findings in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Dransfield speculates that these lightweight planets are likely white or blue, depending on the cloudiness of their atmosphere. They are primarily composed of hydrogen and helium, but further observations with NASA’s Webb Space Telescope are needed to confirm their chemical composition.
Discovered by NASA’s TESS satellite over the last decade, these planets orbit a star in the Volans constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere. Researchers used ground-based telescopes to study the planets' orbits and determine their density. For comparison, Jupiter is 35 times denser than these newly discovered planets.
The new planets also have unusually long orbits: one completes its orbit in 139 days, and the other in 232 days. “Super-puffed” planets are considered rare in the universe and are thought to form in disks of gas and dust around newly formed stars where there is more gas than dust.
