XO-2Nb (or rarely XO-2Bb) is an

extrasolar planet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992 around a pulsar, and the first detection around a main-sequence star was in 1995. A different planet, first detect ...

orbiting the

star A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...

XO-2N, the fainter component of XO-2 wide binary star in the

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The first constellati ...

Lynx A lynx ( ; : lynx or lynxes) is any of the four wikt:extant, extant species (the Canada lynx, Iberian lynx, Eurasian lynx and the bobcat) within the medium-sized wild Felidae, cat genus ''Lynx''. The name originated in Middle Engl ...

. This planet was found by the

transit method Methods of detecting exoplanets usually rely on indirect strategies – that is, they do not directly image the planet but deduce its existence from another signal. Any planet is an extremely faint light source compared to its parent star. For e ...

in 2007 by Burke et al. This was the second such planet found by the

XO telescope The XO Project is an international team of amateur and professional astronomers tasked with identifying extrasolar planets. They are led by Peter R. McCullough of the Space Telescope Science Institute. It is primarily funded by NASA's Origins Pro ...

. Like most planets found by the transit method, it is a roughly

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

sized planet that orbits very close to its host star; in this case, it has a surface

temperature Temperature is a physical quantity that quantitatively expresses the attribute of hotness or coldness. Temperature is measurement, measured with a thermometer. It reflects the average kinetic energy of the vibrating and colliding atoms making ...

of about 1200 K, so it belongs to a group of exoplanets known as

hot Jupiter Hot Jupiters (sometimes called hot Saturns) are a class of gas giant exoplanets that are inferred to be physically similar to Jupiter (i.e. Jupiter analogue, Jupiter analogues) but that have very short orbital periods (). The close proximity to t ...

s. The planet takes 2.6 days to orbit the star at the average distance of 0.0369 AU. The planet has mass of 57% of Jupiter and radius of 97% of Jupiter. The radius is relatively large for its mass, probably due to its intense heating from its nearby star that bloats the planet's

atmosphere An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosph ...

. The large radius for its mass gives a low density of 820 kg/m³.

References

External links

{{Sky, 07, 48, 07, +, 50, 13, 33, 486 Lynx (constellation) Hot Jupiters Transiting exoplanets Exoplanets discovered in 2007 Giant planets

See also

References

External links