Question: Astronomers from which of the following country have discovered a planet named as TOI 1789b, that is bigger than Jupiter?
a) USA
b) India
c) UK
d) New Zealand
Answer: (b)
Related Facts:-
- Indian astronomers have discovered a planet that is bigger than Jupiter which is orbiting too close to a star in its system.
- The exoplanet is dubbed TOI 1789b, orbiting an ageing star that is 1.5 times that of our Sun and located 725 light-years away.
- Scientists observed the planet between December 2020 and March 2021.
- The discovery was done by the team led by Professor Abhijit Chakraborty. Professor Chakraborty is the head of exoplanet search and study group at the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad.
- Astronomers used the Advanced Radial-velocity Abu-sky Search (PARAS) optical fibre-fed spectrograph to detect the planet.
- This is the second such exoplanet discovery to come out of the PRL by scientists using PARAS at 1.2 m Mt. Abu telescope.
- The first exoplanet K2-236b, a sub-Saturn size at 600 light-years away, was discovered in 2018.
- Star TOI-1789 is one of the few nearby evolved stars with a close-in planet.
- The details of this study published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
- The continued observations of the planet revealed that its mass is 70 per cent and size about 1.4 times that of Jupiter.
- Follow-up measurements using TCES spectrograph in Germany showed that it was a unique system in which the planet orbits the host star in just 3.2 days.
- This hot Jupiter is placed very-very close to the star at a distance of 0.05 AU (roughly one-tenth the distance between Sun and Mercury).