An international group of astronomers has detected a new "hot Jupiter" exoplanet making a near-grazing transit of its host star. The newly found alien world, designated WASP-174b, is most likely similar in size and mass to Jupiter, however much hotter than our solar system's biggest planet. The discovery is reported February 2 in a paper published on arXiv.org.
A grazing transit means that a planet only partially transits its parent star's disc. Such planets are important for researchers, as they offer a great opportunity to find additional bodies orbiting host stars. This is because other, yet undetected objects would perturb the grazing planet's orbit and could potentially induce periodic variations of the transit impact parameter, leading to transit duration variations. However, although astronomers have identified hundreds of exoplanets, only a handful of grazing extrasolar worlds have been discovered to date.
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A grazing transit means that a planet only partially transits its parent star's disc. Such planets are important for researchers, as they offer a great opportunity to find additional bodies orbiting host stars. This is because other, yet undetected objects would perturb the grazing planet's orbit and could potentially induce periodic variations of the transit impact parameter, leading to transit duration variations. However, although astronomers have identified hundreds of exoplanets, only a handful of grazing extrasolar worlds have been discovered to date.
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