Oftentimes when astronomers discover new exoplanets they’re molten hot hellscapes or solid frozen spheres of ice. However, WASP-193b which resides 1,232 light-years is a little different.
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00:00Oftentimes when astronomers discover new exoplanets, they're molten hot hellscapes or solid frozen spheres of ice.
00:10However, WASP-193b, which resides 1,232 light-years away, is a little different.
00:18Not only is it around 50% larger than the likes of Jupiter, the biggest planet in our solar system,
00:23it's so wispy and light experts say it's around the same consistency of cotton candy.
00:28According to recent observations, WASP-193b is only around 1% the density of Earth,
00:34despite having a diameter roughly 16 times that of our planet.
00:38And its lack of density is sort of throwing scientists for a loop.
00:41It's the second least dense planet ever discovered.
00:44However, the other is much smaller, which makes more sense.
00:47With the lead astronomer investigating the exoplanet saying about it,
00:50quote,
00:50Its extremely low density makes it a real anomaly among the more than 5,000 exoplanets discovered to date.
00:56This extremely low density cannot be reproduced by standard models of irradiated gas giants,
01:01even under the unrealistic assumption of a coreless structure.
01:04Usually in the cosmos, large objects gather mass and pull more material in,
01:08which then compresses and builds density.
01:11WASP-193b shirks this fact of physics,
01:15meaning scientists have no idea what it's made of.