'Second Jupiter' discovered 17,000 light-years from Earth

Analysis of a trove of old image data from the Kepler space telescope reveals a gas giant exoplanet very similar to Jupiter.

According to a report published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the team led by the University of Manchester named the new object K2-2016-BLG-0005Lb. It is the most distant exoplanet ever discovered by the Kepler space telescope, more than double the previous record at 17,000 light-years from Earth.

Jupiter-like exoplanet simulation.

K2-2016-BLG-0005Lb is likened to the second Jupiter with many similarities with the largest planet in the Solar System. It is also a gas giant, 1.1 times as massive as Jupiter (twice the total mass of all the other planets in the Solar System) and orbiting its host star at a similar distance.

The team discovered this distant object while analyzing a trove of old imaging data collected by Kepler between April and July 2016. They use a technique known as gravitational amplification, which determines the exoplanet. planet by tracking how its gravitational field affects the luminosity of its host star. Specifically, when a planet passes in front of a star, its gravity can bend and magnify that star's light.

"To see the above effect, perfect alignment is required between the planet in front and the star in the background. The chance of seeing a background star affected in this way is only one in tens of millions or so. hundreds of millions," emphasized Dr Eamonn Kerins from the University of Manchester, lead author of the study.

Discoveries like K2-2016-BLG-0005Lb could revolutionize scientists' understanding of exoplanets, as well as the structure of their Solar System. It was the beginning of an effort to find new worlds that could support life.

Kepler was launched in 2009 with the main goal of discovering distant planets the size of Earth, not gas giants. After 9 years of operation in orbit, NASA's telescope has run out of fuel and "retired" from October 30, 2018. To date, Kepler has helped astronomers identify more than 2,700 exoplanets.