back to article Swollen SUPER-GIGANTO PLANET sighted in Andromeda

A gigantic super-planet has been snapped by astroboffins orbiting the massive star Kappa Andromedae. Artist's impression of Kappa And b The super-Jupiter dwarfs any of the planets found in the Solar System, with a mass at least 13 times that of Jupiter and an orbit that is larger than Neptune's. Its host star - Kappa …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Bronek Kozicki
    Pint

    finding an exo planet in another galaxy

    ... that is quite impressive indeed. Have one on me :)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: finding an exo planet in another galaxy

      Firmly in this galaxy. Its in andromeda the constellation, as opposed to the andromeda galaxy, which is a galaxy that happens to be visible in the constellation andromeda from our viewpoint.

      1. Bronek Kozicki

        Re: finding an exo planet in another galaxy

        oops thx, had to reread that 170ly . Much less than 2.5x10^6ly to the other galaxy :)

  2. Himalayaman
    Alien

    Artificial

    Clearly this is an artifical dyson-sphere like alien object. We are not alone!!!!

  3. Peladon

    "A gigantic super-planet has been snapped by astroboffins orbiting the massive star Kappa Andromedae."

    We have 'astro-boffins' orbiting Kappa Andromeda? Did I do a Rip van Winkle and just woke up? Can we go there too? Yay for progress! :-P.

  4. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

    If this is Kappa Andromeda b

    Is there a Kappa Andromeda a in the same system?

    Also, when I read the headline for this story, I thought it was talking about the Andromeda galaxy, rather than the constellation Andromeda, and became immediately alarmed that a massive swirly conglomeration of stars which was previously thought to be 2.5 million light years away had snuck up while we weren't looking to a mere 130 LY and is now lurking in our (relatively speaking) cosmic back-yard!

  5. frank ly
    Alien

    As the sensitivity and resolution of our instruments improves......

    My god, it's full of planets!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: As the sensitivity and resolution of our instruments improves......

      It's humanities belief on so many occasions we are special

      We treat animals as inferior, when some animals have traits equal to our own, or more in the case of some Chimps in memory tests.

      We thought the earth was the centre of everything. We weren't

      We thought the solar system was the only planetary system. It wasn't.

      We thought the planets in the solar system were the only rocky planets. They weren't

      We thought the earth was the only habitable planet in the habitable zone. It's not, as of fairly recently. It stands to reason soon enough we will find an earth replica soon enough.

      And we still think we are alone. We aren't.

      Finding life in our supposedly dead neighbour planet would be fantastic, finding that even basic life is present in more than one place in our solar system bodes well it's much more common than we think it is in the galaxy.

      Exciting.

  6. Richard Wharram

    Isn't it a brown dwarf then?

    1. johnnytruant

      It's at the bottom end of the mass requirement to be a brown dwarf, but it's a bit too big which means the density is too low.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_dwarf#Distinguishing_low-mass_brown_dwarfs_from_high-mass_planets

    2. Grikath

      the object is *just* short of being a brown dwarf, and as such classed as a "star" instead of as a planet.

      It's actual designation does class it as a star though.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Where's the image?

    Umm. This is news because this is nearly the first planet we have an image of.

    How about showing the actual image rather than an artists impression?

    1. mike 32
      Alert

      Re: Where's the image?

      There are three images at the end of the pdf referenced at the bottom of the article, but yes, a pic in the article would have been ideal.

  8. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    On homo sapiens' declining eye acquity...

    "The star is so huge, it can be seen with the naked eye in the constellation Andromeda, even though it's 170 light years away."

    I dunno, I see lots of stars with the naked eye, and whole lot if I'm away from the city in the dark countryside.

  9. Snowball Solar System

    Astronomical Dope Slap

    Our extraordinary observational prowess has far outstripped our theoretical models to explain these marvels.

    We keep getting bushwhacked by nature, with hot Jupiters that supposedly migrated inward or Kuiper-belt-distant Jupiters that supposed migrated outward or stars too big to have formed planets, and our response to this and every other dope slap has been to finesse the very models that keep surprising us with failure after failure. Surrender Dorothy!

    The accretion model for planet formation is an utter failure that needs replacement by a gravitational instability (GI) model occurring at L4/L5 (Trojan) Lagrangian points around the smaller B-stars in binary star systems, which are the only stable locations in solar systems (solitary or binary) where vortexes can form leading to GI.

    Astronomer's recognize that most stars form as multiples, and yet most planets surround solitary stars, but that's not because the multiple star systems break up, but because close-binary star systems merge in luminous red novae (LRNe) to form solitary stars.

    The asymmetry of 'Trojan planet' orbits (gravitationally bound to the A-star and unbound to the B-star) results in secular (core-collapse) perturbation which causes the Trojan planets to spiral out, while the close-binary solar pairs to spiral in (leading to stellar merger). And core-collapse perturbation can strand planets born in the stellar realm in low hot orbits or can lift them 10s or 100s of AU from their former close-binary pairs, and objects formed by GI in Trojan points can run the size gamut from super-earths to dwarf stars. Finally, the kidney-bean shape of L4/L5 Lagrangian points tend to cause vortexes to bifurcate prior to gravitational collapse, tending to form Trojan pairs, like Venus-Earth, Jupiter-Saturn and Uranus-Neptune.

    1. Tom 38
      Thumb Up

      Re: Astronomical Dope Slap

      I have no idea what you said, but sounds amazing. I'll take two.

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Astronomical Dope Slap

      I will be waiting for the detailed computer simulation on a Cray XK7 and the subsequent papers. Graduate students, get to it!

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Astronomical Dope Slap

      "Our extraordinary observational prowess has far outstripped our theoretical models to explain these marvels."

      Yup - and you should see the astronomers frantically trying to work out how it all hangs together.

      Keeps me in a job anyway :)

    5. cortland

      Re: Astronomical Dope Slap

      if Jupiter is almost too massive to be a planet...

      Why isn't this one a young star?

      1. Wilseus

        If Jupiter is almost too massive to be a planet, why isn't this one a young star?

        Because neither this planet not Jupiter are anywhere near massive enough to be a star. I think even the most feeble stars are over 80 times Jupiter's mass.

        1. Wilseus

          Re: If Jupiter is almost too massive to be a planet, why isn't this one a young star?

          *That should be "nor Jupiter"

  10. ChronosProductions
    Pirate

    Perhaps Maximus Mercurios fated encounter...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5P9Dwkmego&feature=plcp is this the same supergiant?

  11. LordHighFixer
    Thumb Up

    Only in astronomy

    can a one in a billion chance mean that you find them everywhere..

    1. Rattus Rattus

      Re: Only in astronomy

      *cough* Particle physics.

  12. YARR
    Boffin

    Relatively massive

    2.5x the mass of our Sun is not massive on the Main Sequence. Stars can be 10s to 100s of times more massive than our Sun, but they burn out faster. It's just at the upper end of the scale for stars with orbiting planets.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    But why?

    Why did "god" make all these extra bits and pieces out there in the cosmos?

    Specially since we cannot see/detect much of it.

    Hmmmmm

    Maybe, this religion lark is all bollocks.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like