Astronomers discover exoplanet that holds striking resemblance to Jupiter; See pic

An international team of astronomers examining data accessed in 2016 by NASA's Kepler space telescope has discovered an exoplanet that holds a striking resemblance to Jupiter in our solar system. Dubbed K2-2016-BLG-0005Lb, the exoplanet has mass and distance from its sun almost the same as that of Jupiter, however, the exoplanet is twice as distant as any hitherto noticed by Kepler. It is pertinent to note that the Kepler telescope has helped scientists confirm the discovery of 2,700 exoplanets before retiring in 2018.

(The exoplanet K2-2016-BLG-0005Lb around its star; Image: University of Manchester)

More about Jupiter's twin

Located at a colossal distance of 17,000 light-years from Earth, the exoplanet weighs 1.1 times more than Jupiter and is tied to a star that claims a mass of 60% when compared to our sun. What's more, is that the exoplanet orbits its star from a distance of 420 million miles. Jupiter, on the other hand, circles our sun from a distance of 462 million miles, as per the study to be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Led by David Specht from The University of Manchester, the research uncovered Jupiter's twin after three months of observation. The observations were carried out between April and July 2016 using the method of gravitational microlensing, which emerged from Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity. The aim was to look for evidence of an exoplanet and its host star temporarily bending and magnifying the light from a background star as it passes by the line of sight. In addition to Kepler, five international ground-based surveys also looked at the same area of sky at the same time. After observing an anomaly around 135 million kilometres from Earth, scientists concluded that this was being caused by a distant exoplanet. 

Dr. Eamonn Kerins, Principal Investigator for the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) grant that funded the work said as per the University's statement, "Kepler was also able to observe uninterrupted by weather or daylight, allowing us to determine precisely the mass of the exoplanet and its orbital distance from its host star. It is basically Jupiter's identical twin in terms of its mass and its position from its Sun, which is about 60% of the mass of our own Sun". He further said that this would help us understand the architecture of our own solar system and the data obtained would allow us to test our ideas of how planets are formed.

Image: NASA