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Object Defies Categorization As Planet or Star

Posted by timothy on from the stella-incognito dept.

Kligat writes "The COROT project of the French Space Agency has detected an object described as defying categorization as a planet, star, or brown dwarf. Although only 0.8 times the radius of Jupiter, it is over 20 times as massive, giving it a density twice that of the metal platinum. If it is a star, it would be the smallest of those ever discovered."

5 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. Re:it's dark matter by ChowRiit · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We've searched for large, dense objects that create dark matter (MACHOs) with microlensing, but there aren't nearly enough. Combined with some other properties of dark matter observed in other galaxies, where it appears to be distinct from normal matter, we're fairly sure now that it's small particles with a mass, such as neutrinos or some as yet undiscovered particle (WIMPs). Wikipedia will probably tell you more.

  2. Re:Um... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Thats no moon... How do you know that? It could easily have been a planet and a lot of heavy moons. That would explain why the planet has a low visible cross section but a high apparent mass.
  3. Re:Sorry... by mazarin5 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's been a long, long, time since I've seen a Uranus joke that made me laugh :)

    --
    Fnord.
  4. Irony by Codex_of_Wisdom · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Didn't the IAU just "figure out" the definitions of stars and planets? Are we going to have another year long line of BS talks and arguments, ending in a bad definition that rewrites every science book and generally gives everyone a headache? I hope not...

  5. Re:It's a Dwarf! by statemachine · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Maybe it was married.