Astronomers have claimed to found a strange planet. The new planet is similar to Jupiter. It has many things common in Jupiter. The discovery was made by a team at Harvard and Smithsonian’s Center for Astrophysics. The team said that the new planet has characteristics that are similar to Jupiter’s. The planet is said to be 575 light-years away from Earth. It is called WASP-62b. It is a gas giant. The planet has a mass half that of Jupiter. It has no clouds. It means that the planet has no atmosphere. This is the second time when astronauts have discovered a cloudless exoplanet. Researchers said that such planets are very rare and comprise less than 7 percent of exoplanets.
Scientists are now studying how these bodies are formed. Researchers said that WASP-62b is the nearest planet to WASP-62. WASP-62 is a single star. It is located approximately 600 light-years farm from Earth. WASP-62b is the only planet in the system. It orbits the star in nearly 4.5 Earth days. The planet falls into the category of hot Jupiters. The temperature on a hot Jupiter is as high as 1057 degrees Celsius. The planet was first detected in 2012. But astronauts got to study the planet’s atmosphere recently. The observation was made from the Hubble Space Telescope. Researchers detected sodium on the planet. Sodium is an element that is obscured if clouds are present in the atmosphere.
The team said that the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope will provide them more data to study and understand the planet. The telescope is jointly developed by NASA, ESA, and CSA. The telescope is likely to be launched in October this year. The equipment will provide improved infrared resolution and will have more sensitivity over Hubble. It will be the successor to Hubble Space Telescope. The telescope’s construction was completed in 2016 and testing began. It was earlier slated for launch in 2018, but the launch was delayed after its sunshield ripped.
