Ahmedabad-based astronomers discover exoplanet bigger than Jupiter, 725 light-years away

Marking a historic discovery, Indian astromers have located an exoplanet 725 light-years away from Earth which is orbiting an ing star having a mass of 1.5 times that of Sun. According to a statement by Indian Research Organisation (ISRO), discovery was me by  Ahmedab-based Physical Research Laboratory's (PRL) exoplanet search and study group which has w been published in  journal Monthly tices of Royal Astromical Society. 

PRL marks its second exoplanet discovery

Dubbed TOI 1789b, this new exoplanet is bigger than Jupiter and is second discovery me by PRL as it first discovered a world outside solar system named K2-236b in 2018. latter is a sub-Saturn-sized planet and is located 600 light-years away.  astromers were able to observe new exoplanet using first-of-its-kind PRL vanced Rial-velocity Abu-sky Search (PARAS) optical fibre-fed spectrograph, equipped in  1.2-meter Telescope of PRL in Mt. Abu.

Led by Professor Abhijit Chakraborty, team found that exoplanet is revolving extremely close to its star dubbed HD 82139 as it completes one revolution in under four days. For scaling, distance is just one-tenth distance between Mercury and sun. As a result, this proximity makes exoplanet's surface temperature reach up to 2000 K. What makes discovery even more special is that re are less than 10 such close-in systems of exoplanets discovered so far. 

Reflecting on discovery, ISRO said as per its statement-

detection of such system enhances our understanding of various mechanisms responsible for inflation in hot-Jupiters and formation and evolution of planetary systems around evolving and aging stars.

Interestingly, PARAS was also able to determine mass and size of planet which turned out to be 70% and 1.4 times that of Jupiter, largest planet in our solar system. As per reports, findings emerged after extensive observations that were carried out between December 2020 and March 2021 entailed by a follow-up investigation with data obtained by TCES spectrograph from Germany in April 2021, and  photometric observations from PRL's 43-cm telescope. 

(With PTI inputs)

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