{"id":189506,"date":"2024-05-16T07:26:10","date_gmt":"2024-05-16T12:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/05\/super-fluffy-cotton-candy-exoplanet-discovery-shocks-scientists-we-cannot-explain-how-this-planet-formed"},"modified":"2024-05-16T07:26:10","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T12:26:10","slug":"super-fluffy-cotton-candy-exoplanet-discovery-shocks-scientists-we-cannot-explain-how-this-planet-formed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/05\/super-fluffy-cotton-candy-exoplanet-discovery-shocks-scientists-we-cannot-explain-how-this-planet-formed","title":{"rendered":"Super Fluffy \u201cCotton Candy\u201d Exoplanet Discovery Shocks Scientists \u2014 \u201cWe Cannot Explain How This Planet Formed\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/super-fluffy-cotton-candy-exoplanet-discovery-shocks-scientists-we-cannot-explain-how-this-planet-formed2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Astronomers have discovered an enormous, low-density planet named WASP-193b, which is 50% larger than Jupiter but has a cotton candy-like density. This finding challenges current planetary formation theories, as scientists cannot explain how such a planet could form.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Astronomers have discovered a huge, fluffy oddball of a planet orbiting a distant star in our Milky Way galaxy. The discovery, reported on May 14 in the journal <em><i>Nature Astronomy<\/i><\/em> by researchers from at MIT, the University of Li\u00e8ge in Belgium, and elsewhere, is a promising key to the mystery of how such giant, super-light planets form.<\/p>\n<p>The new planet, named WASP-193b, appears to dwarf Jupiter in size, yet it is a fraction of its density. The scientists found that the gas giant is 50 percent bigger than Jupiter, and about a tenth as dense \u2014 an extremely low density, comparable to that of cotton candy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Astronomers have discovered an enormous, low-density planet named WASP-193b, which is 50% larger than Jupiter but has a cotton candy-like density. This finding challenges current planetary formation theories, as scientists cannot explain how such a planet could form. Astronomers have discovered a huge, fluffy oddball of a planet orbiting a distant star in our Milky [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}