Astronomers from the UK, Switzerland, Germany and Chile have discovered an exoplanet that is too large, the existence of which is contrary to generally accepted models of the formation of these celestial bodies. The study was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, according to the University of Warwick (UK).
The diameter of the exoplanet NGTS-1b is only half the diameter of the star around which it revolves. This circumstance makes the open celestial body the largest (in comparison with the parent star) in the Universe known to scientists.
NGTS-1b lies 600 light-years from the Sun. The exoplanet is comparable in size to Jupiter, but lighter by about 20 percent.
NGTS-1b belongs to the class of hot Jupiters, the temperature of its outer layers is 530 degrees Celsius, the distance between the star and the celestial body is 33 times less than between the Sun and the Earth, and a year lasts only 2.5 days.
The exoplanet was discovered by a robotic telescope system NGTS (Next-Generation Transit Survey). Since the parent star belongs to red dwarfs, the most common luminaries in the Universe, scientists plan to find out how often such stars surround large planets.