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A Puffed-Up Extrasolar Planet

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the floats-like-a-beachball dept.

Maggie McKee writes, "New Scientist Space reports astronomers have found a planet less dense than a wine cork and 38% larger than Jupiter. It circles a star about 450 light years from Earth. A similarly bloated planet has been found before (HD 209458b), so these puffed-up planets may be quite common. But no one knows how they got so swollen. One possibility is 'that some poorly understood mechanism has separated hydrogen and helium in each planet.'"

2 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. Two is impossible.. by Kozar_The_Malignant · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "The number two is impossible," - Isaac Asimov in The Gods Themselves.

    The meaning being that there may be none of something in the universe, there may be one of something, but if there are two, there are lots more than two. Actually, in this case he was referring to universes themselves, not just things in the univrerse, but the point is the same.

    --
    Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
    1. Re:Two is impossible.. by EsbenMoseHansen · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Counterexample: Regular polyhedron in ( 3 dimensions ): The tetrahedron, hexahedron, octahedron, dodecahedron, icosahedron. That's 5, and all there is.

      And on the topic at hand: The claim were that these things are common. If they are really rare, there might still be a lot of them.

      --
      Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.