14 DAY TRIAL // The datasets the NASA Kepler Telescope has relayed back earlier this year are literally keeping astronomers up at night. Numerous studies are now being conducted on the 1,235 planetary candidates the observatory found, and the latest efforts led to the confirmation of two more exoplanets.
Extrasolar planets are celestial bodies outside our solar system, which orbit their own parent stars. There are several classes of exoplanets out there, and each of them has its own particularities, requiring slightly different observations techniques for confirmation.
Astronomers working at the Hobby-Eberly Telescope have just confirmed another of Kepler's proposed exoplanets, just weeks after confirming another. This observatory is excellently equipped to handle this type of missions, hence the speed at which it can confirm or infirm discoveries.
The second exoplanet was confirmed by a team working at the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT). This is the first time this group successfully gathered data confirming a planet outside our solar system.
Interestingly, the NOT object is part of a binary star system. This most likely means that it is subjected to numerous opposing forces. As such, it represents an amazing opportunity for researchers to study this type of system.
The planet NOT confirmed is called Kepler 14b, and it revolves around a binary star known as Kepler 14A or KOI-98. Calculations show that the exoplanet is about 84. times heavier than Jupiter, with a radius 1.14 times larger than that of the largest planet in our solar system.
Kepler 14b is a hot Jupiter-class planet, which means that it orbits very close to its parent star. It takes the massive object less than 7 days to complete a full orbit. The second, smaller star in the binary system takes 2,800 years to complete an orbit around its larger companion.
The second confirmed exoplanet is Kepler-17b, another hot Jupiter object that is about 2.5 times heavier than our solar system companion. Despite having a relatively low mass, the planet is about the size and radius of the Sun, Universe Today reports.
Interestingly, astronomers were able to conclude that the exoplanet and its parent star spin in the same direction, which is remarkable because many other planets were found to have retrograde orbits.
At one point in time, discovering retrograde orbit – when a planet spins in an opposite direction than its parent star – was something that was truly outstanding, but lately more and more such objects are found.
Astronomers working at a large number of telescopes around the world plan to continue their research, analyzing Kepler data and confirming or infirming what the NASA telescope detects. By now, more than 570 exoplanets have been confirmed.