Indian astronomers discover exoplanet bigger than Jupiter

New Delhi : Indian scientists have discovered a new exoplanet that is bigger than the size of Jupiter. The planets found outside our solar system are called exoplanets; the recently spotted one is located 725 light years away.

It has also been said that mass of the exoplanet is 1.5 times that of our Sun.

The discovery of the new exoplanet has been made by PRL's Exoplanet Research and Study Group led by Professor Abhijit Chakraborty. ISRO scientists along with researchers from Europe and America were also involved in this.

According to ISRO, this newly discovered star-planet system is a very unique - the planet orbits the host star in just 3.2 days, thus placing it very-very close to the star at a distance of 0.05 AU (roughly one-tenth the distance between Sun and Mercury).There are less than 10 such close-in systems known among the zoo of exoplanets known so far.

The scientists have mentioned that the size of exoplanet is bigger than Jupiter, biggest planet in our solar system. The exoplanet, known as TOI 1789b or HD 82139b, is 70% and size about 1.4 times that of the Jupiter.

This is the second exoplanet discovered by PRL scientists using PARAS at 1.2 m Mt. Abu telescope; the first exoplanet K2-236b, a sub-Saturn size at 600 light-years away, was discovered in 2018.