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An artist's conception of a young planet in a distant orbit around its host star. The star still harbors a debris disk, remnant material from star and planet formation, interior to the planet's orbit.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech |
An enormous alien planet, one that is 11 times more massive than Jupiter, was discovered in the most distant orbit yet found around a single parent star.The newfound exoplanet, dubbed HD 106906 b, dwarfs any planetary body in the solar system, and circles its star at a distance that is 650 times the average distance between the Earth and the sun. The existence of such a massive and distantly orbiting planet raises new questions about how these bizarre worlds are formed, the researchers said."This system is especially fascinating because no model of either planet or star formation fully explains what we see," study lead researcher Vanessa Bailey, a fifth-year graduate student in the University of Arizona's department of astronomy, said in a statement.
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| This is a discovery image of planet HD 106906 b in thermal infrared light. The planet is more than 20 times farther away from its star than Neptune is from the sun. Credit: Vanessa Bailey |
The Most Surprising fact about this Planet in my opinion is it is only 13 million years old and is still growing exponentially.
Here are two fascinating videos on HD 106906 b
Sources:
http://www.space.com/23858-most-distant-alien-planet-discovery-hd106906b.html
Youtube.com
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