Cotton Candy Planets Defy Cosmic Laws
Astronomers have discovered a remarkably rare pair of Jupiter-sized “super-puff” exoplanets orbiting a dwarf star 1 110 light-years away.
Initial data from NASA’s TESS satellite, flagged by citizen scientists, led an international team to confirm the worlds TOI-791 b and TOI-791 c.
These siblings are the lightest known planets of their size, with densities lower than candy floss. Jupiter is up to 35 times denser. George Dransfield of Oxford University remarked, “These two planets have densities comparable to a nice blob of shaving foam, fresh from the can.”
The planets share a 5:3 orbital resonance, meaning the inner world orbits five times for every three of the outer planets. This gravitational dance causes massive eleven-hour transits across their host star. Using continuous Antarctic winter darkness, the ASTEP telescope recorded these historic ground-based observations.
Scientists theorise these worlds gathered massive hydrogen and helium atmospheres in freezing, distant regions before migrating inwards. To unravel the mystery, researchers intend to use the James Webb Space Telescope.
Professor Amaury Triaud stated, “We propose to carry out space-based observations using the James Webb Space Telescope to assess if the puffy atmosphere contains carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen-bearing species”.
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