Thursday, 17 August 2023 – 20:07 WIB
LIVE Techno – Since astronomers first looked outside the solar system three decades ago to find exoplanets, the space objects likely vary widely in width and mass.
But how big are these planets and what are the largest planets that we know of? Prior to 1992, when the first exoplanet was discovered, the gas giant Jupiter, which is about 11 times the width of Earth, held the title of the largest known planet.
But Jupiter still turns out to be nothing compared to some of the monster worlds that have been discovered since then, according to the Live Science page, Thursday, August 17, 2023.
There are two things to consider when determining the size of a planet. First is the width (twice the radius) and the mass.
“The largest exoplanet has a planetary radius about twice the radius of Jupiter. It is an extreme object that orbits very close to its parent star,” said Solene Ulmer-Moll, a postdoctoral exoplanet researcher at the University of Geneva.
A planet’s width and mass are related, but there isn’t always a direct correlation between the two. This is because the densities of planets vary, which means that some low-mass gas giants can expand to larger sizes than other, heavier exoplanets.
For example, the gas giant HAT-P-67 b, which has a radius about twice that of Jupiter, is one of the largest known planets in terms of width.
2023-08-17 13:07:00
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