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October 6, 2008 10:19:03 PM CDT

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Largest Planet Ever Discovered

Posted Aug 7, 07 1:53 PM CDT in World,  US,  Science & Health 

(Newser) – Forget Jupiter. Scientists have discovered the largest planet out there—a "puffy" space mass almost twice the size of our solar system's gas giant. But the find is posing more questions than answers, Space.com reports: TrES-4’s mass is large but its density is about the same as balsa wood, which has confounded astronomers' theoretical models.

The exoplanet is "way bigger than it's supposed to be," one of its puzzled discoverers said. "For its mass, it should be much smaller."  TrES-4 is 1,400 light years from Earth and was discovered by scientists using a telescope that tracked its orbit around its parent star—a giant that will swallow the poor planet up in about a billion years.

Source Space.com

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A 3D rendered simulation of TrES-4, with its host star, which is bigger and hotter than the Sun, and about ten times larger than the planet, itself. Astronomers also speculate that the large size and...   (Jeffrey Hall, Lowell Observatory)
"We actually looked at the energy which the planet gets from the star, and there's no way this can be the only explanation for how big the planet is," Astronomer Georgi Mandushev said.   (Associated Press)
The newly discovered gas giant is one of the "puffy" planets recently discovered, so named for their low density. For its estimated mass, scientists estimate that "TrES-4 is way bigger than it's supposed...   (Getty Images)
A 3D rendering of the planet, designated TrES-4. The new gas giant is approximately 1.7 times the size of Jupiter, and of extremely low density.   (Jeffrey Hall, Lowell Observatory)
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