spacetoday.net: New "temperate" exoplanet discovered

Posted: Sat, Mar 20, 2010, 10:27 AM ET (1427 GMT)
CoRoT-9b illustration (IAC)

Astronomers announced this week the discovery of a Jupiter-sized extrasolar planet in an orbit distant enough from its parent star to have relatively moderate temperatures. Scientists detected CoRoT-9b with the French astronomy satellite CoRoT by observing the planet transit in front of its Sun-like star, temporarily dimming the light from the star 1,500 light-years away. Those data, coupled with additional observations at the European Southern Observatory, found that the planet was roughly the size of Jupiter in a nearly circular orbit at roughly the same distance from the star as Mercury is from the Sun. That orbit allows the gas giant planet to have "temperate" conditions, with surface temperatures estimated to be between -20 and 160 degrees Celsius. Astronomers said they believed this planet could be a "Rosetta stone" that allows them to better understand many other exoplanets.