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Astronomers Find Strange Planets, Shaped Like Rugby Balls

JAKARTA, celebrities.id – A team astronomer studying exoplanets found with similar shapes was rugby. The team guessed the shape planet this is caused by the strong tidal force of the parent star.

The planet, discovered in 2014 is called WASP-103b and is about 1,530 light-years from Earth.

It orbits its star in less than an Earth day and is slightly more massive than Jupiter, as well as 20 times hotter.

But unlike the local gas giant Earth, the planet is oblong, as described in a recently published paper in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

“In principle we expect a planet 1.5 times the mass of Jupiter to be roughly the same size, so WASP-103b must be highly expanding due to heating from its star and possibly other mechanisms,” said lead author Susana Barros, an astrophysicist at the Instituto de Astrofísica e Cincias do Espaço, quoted from Gizmodo, Saturday (15/1/2022).

Because of their resemblance, WASP-103b is referred to as a hot Jupiter, which is a class of exoplanets characterized by similarities to the local gas giant Earth.


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