WASP-103b Potato shape exoplanet found, all you need to know

A exoplanet named WASP-103b has been discovered, whose size is different from all the planets so far. It is 1500 light years away from Earth. Its size is many times larger than the Sun and one and a half times larger than Jupiter. The international team of astronomers has described this new discovery in detail in the Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics. This WASP-103b plane is of strange shape, which is quite interesting.

Key Points About the planet WASP-103b

• WASP-103b is a exoplanet.
• The worlds orbiting other stars are called “exoplanets,” and they come in a wide variety of sizes, from gas giants larger than Jupiter to small, rocky planets about as big around as Earth or Mars. 
• According to the discovery and observation so far, the planets in our Solar System are several million miles away from the Sun, they take a long time to revolve around the Sun. But exoplanets orbit their home star in a few days. Sometimes within a few hours. Hot Jupiter orbits its star in less than a day, which is also called ultra short period planet.
• Wasp 103's orbit is only 22 hours. The few exoplanets we know of complete a cycle in as little as 10 hours.
• Wasp 103 is very close to its home star, due to which extreme weather can happen here.

How they found it?

• With the help of NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, the team pieced together the weird shape of WASP-103b. 

Press statement

“It’s incredible that Cheops was actually able to reveal this tiny deformation,” “This is the first time such analysis has been made, and we can hope that observing over a longer time interval will strengthen this observation and lead to better knowledge of the planet's internal structure.”

Jaques Laskar, Paris Observatory at Université Paris Sciences et Lettres astronomer and co-author of the research

Why this is important discovery?

These planets all come in different shapes, sizes, and configurations. Such a vast amount of data helps astronomers refine how planets form, and how systems like our own come to be as well as challenging our assumptions.

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