A team of scientists led by Professor Abhijit Chakraborty from the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad, has made an exciting discovery in space. They have found a very dense alien planet that is about 13 times larger than Jupiter, which is the largest planet in our solar system. This is the third exoplanet discovered by the PRL scientists.
The researchers from India, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States worked together to make this discovery. They used a special instrument called the PRL Advanced Radial-velocity Abu-sky Search spectrograph (PARAS) at the Gurushikhar Observatory in Mt. Abu. This instrument allowed them to accurately measure the mass of the planet. The newly discovered exoplanet has a density of 14 grams per cubic centimeter, which means it is very dense.
The team has made significant progress in astronomy with the help of this groundbreaking technology. They found these exoplanets orbiting a star called TOI-4603, which is a sub-giant star of the F-type. They observed the star using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).
The exoplanet they discovered, also known as TOI 4603b or HD 245134b, is one of the few massive giant planets with extremely high density. Its mass is in a range between massive giant planets and low-mass brown dwarfs. This makes it a valuable addition to the limited number of objects in this mass range that we know about.