14 DAY TRIAL // A couple of years back, when he was but 15, space enthusiast Tom Wagg pinned down regular glitches in the light emitted by a star located about 1,000 light-years away from our planet.
The young astronomer, who was then on work experience at Keele University in Staffordshire, UK, proposed that the glitches were the result of an undocumented orb circling the star and partly obscuring it from view when passing in front of it.
Having taken the time to review Tom Wagg's findings and have a look at the distant star themselves, scientists can now confirm that the teenager really did find a new planet.
“I'm hugely excited to have found a new planet, and I'm very impressed that we can find them so far,” says Tom Wagg, now 17. “Tom is keen to learn about science, so it was easy to train him to look for planets'', adds researcher Coel Hellier of Keele University.
Since the newly discovered orb is quite far from Earth, the teenager did not find it simply by staring at the sky through a telescope. Instead, he zoomed in on it while sifting through data produced by the WASP (Wide Angle Search for Planets) project.
This research collaboration boils down to using scientific instruments to survey the sky and identify light fluctuations that might be an indicator of planets orbiting distant stars. The project has so far discovered 142 previously unknown orbs.
The planet is about the size of Jupiter, most likely uninhabitable
As mentioned, the orb discovered by Tom Wagg circles a star positioned about 1,000 light-years away from Earth, in the constellation of Hydra. Once confirmed to be a planet, it was given the moniker WASP-142b.
The planet is estimated to be about the size of Jupiter. In case anyone was wondering, the radius of this cosmic neighbor of ours in the Solar System is one of nearly 70,000 kilometers (43,500 miles).
Astronomers say that the newly discovered orb has an orbit of just two days, which means that it transits the Earth-facing side of its parent star quite often and explains why Tom Wagg had such an easy time identifying it.
The planet sits quite close to its star. Scientists suspect that it did not form in its current orbit but instead migrated there as a result of gravitational interactions with other celestial bodies in its proximity.
Since the hemisphere facing the star received massive amounts of radiation and the other is fairly cool, researchers doubt that the planet might sustain alien lifeforms.
