Article by, Adrian Vatchinsky
National Geographics recently reported on an exoplanet that just had what it takes to stand out amongst the now hundreds of exoplanets discovered in the last few years.
Before you get your hopes up that this planet is the long lost twin of Earth, it should be noted that the temperatures on this planet are assumed to reach about 980 C, which can more than fry an egg. What makes this planet so interesting is that it is extremely dark. In fact, a lump of charcoal reflects more light than this Jupiter-sized planet!
The planet was discovered by the Keplar Space Telescope which is specifically designed with the goal of finding exoplanets across the Universe. The way the Keplar telescope detects these minuscule specs out in space it by focusing its sensors on an area of the sky. It then looks for any dimming or changes in the incoming light from the stars. A possible reason as to why such a dimming occurred could be, if all things aligned properly, that a planet passed in between the star and our eye in the sky. When it came to this particular planet, there was a change in relative brightness of the host star of only 6.5 parts per million!
Other tests to detect exoplanets include detecting small wobbles in stars which could be due to planets' gravitational pull on their stars.
Even though this planet may not be the blue jug of water we have been searching for it is nonetheless a testament to the accuracy and engineering of our latest attempt at probing the night skies!
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