A transiting giant planet with a temperature between 250 K and 430 K
2010
Of the over 400 known
exoplanets, there are about 70
planetsthat transit their central star, a situation that permits the derivation of their basic parameters and facilitates investigations of their atmospheres. Some short-period
planets, including the first terrestrial
exoplanet(CoRoT-7b), have been discovered using a space mission designed to find smaller and more distant
planetsthan can be seen from the ground. Here we report transit observations of CoRoT-9b, which orbits with a period of 95.274 days on a low eccentricity of 0.11 ± 0.04 around a solar-like star. Its periastron distance of 0.36
astronomical unitsis by far the largest of all transiting
planets, yielding a ‘temperate’
photospherictemperature estimated to be between 250 and 430 K. Unlike previously known transiting
planets, the present size of CoRoT-9b should not have been affected by
tidal heatdissipation processes. Indeed, the
planetis found to be well described by standard evolution models with an inferred interior composition consistent with that of Jupiter and
Saturn.
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