They Found An Exoplanet Extremely Similar To Jupiter
This is a much more elaborate description of 51 Eridani b. And the other cool thing is that this particular exoplanet is closer than other gas giant types that they have observed before:
The planet is two times the mass of Jupiter, and the most solar system-like planet ever directly imaged around another star. It orbits its parent star 51 Eridani at about 13 times the Earth-sun distance. Besides being what is likely the lowest-mass planet ever imaged, its atmosphere is also very cool – 430 degrees Celsius (800 degrees Fahrenheit). The exoplanet also features the strongest spectroscopic atmospheric methane signal, similar to the heavy methane dominated atmospheres of the gas giant planets in our solar system.“Earlier directly imaged Jupiter analogs have been more like 5-10 times Jupiter mass and they don’t have that strong methane signal that 51 Eridani b shows, it really looks like a planet spectra rather than a brown dwarf.51 Eridani b could provide us clues as to how solar systems form. Astronomers believe that the gas giants in our solar system formed by building up a large core over a few million years and then pulling in a huge amount of hydrogen and other gases to form an atmosphere.
As they get more data from this particular find, we will likely have very different ideas of what we currently think early Jupiter may have looked like!
thanks to astrowatch.net for the great info
thanks to seti.org for the pic
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