Hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds; Hebrews 1:2
"An international team led by researchers at the University of Oxford has discovered the pair of so-called “super-puff” planets orbiting a star approximately 1,110 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation Volans. The findings, published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, place the two worlds among the lowest-density giant planets ever detected.
A big planet usually means a lot of mass. Jupiter, for instance, is
Meanwhile, candy floss comes in at roughly 0.05 grams per cubic centimeter.
The planets orbit an F7-type dwarf star coined TOI-791. TOI-791 b and TOI-791 c appear to be locked in a 5:3 orbital resonance. That means that for every five trips the inner planet makes around the star, the outer planet completes almost exactly three. This may sound like a small detail, but in planetary systems, timing is everything. Planets in resonance tug on each other in predictable ways, like two people pulling on the same bedsheet from opposite sides.
For now, TOI-791 b and c are a reminder that the universe still has a sense of humor. After decades of exoplanet discoveries, astronomers have found hot Jupiters skimming their stars, lava worlds with molten surfaces and planets that orbit two or even more stars. Now they have found a pair of giant planets so insubstantial that they make Jupiter look like a bowling ball.
They are huge. They are faintly absurd. And they may be exactly the kind of worlds astronomers need to better understand how planetary systems are built."
msn
