<p>Located at a distance of 1200 light years from the earth, the new planet, called WASP-12b, orbits a star slightly hotter than the Sun. As big as Jupiter, it is outside the solar system and different from all known planets.<br /><br />Planets generally have water, dust and oxygen. But not WASP-12, which is the first planet whose atmosphere is highly rich in carbon. <br /><br />“It shows something else is going on in planet formation, opening up a new area for planet formation processes,” said Nikku Madhusudhan from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), principal investigator of the study. <br /><br />A diamond mine<br /><br />WASP-12 is full of gas without any surface. But its discovery suggests there might be smaller rocky carbon-rich planets whose rocks are nothing but diamond and graphite. <br />“If high carbon-oxygen ratios are common, then the formation processes and compositions of extrasolar planets are probably very different,” Madhusudhan and colleagues from other USA and UK reported in “Nature.” <br /><br />The planet orbits the star at a distance 40 times closer than the Earth is to the Sun — making WASP-12b one of the hottest known exoplanets, with a surface temperature exceeding 2,200 degrees Celsius. <br /><br />“Due to a high carbon-oxygen ratio, the planet’s internal chemistry would be different, suggesting the rocks in it may be diamonds and graphite,” Madhusudhan, a former Bangalorean who did his PhD from Banaras Hindu University told Deccan Herald.<br /><br />Discovery <br /><br />The planet was found last year by UK Wide-Angle Search for Planets using the WASP telescope in La Palma. Madhusudhan and his colleagues have now observed WASP-12b with NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope to unearth more details. <br /><br />“A rocky planet in such a planetary system could have an interior abundant in diamonds and a surface littered with graphite and diamonds,” said Joe Harrington, of the University of Central Florida, who led the analysis of the Spitzer data.<br /><br />WASP-12’s atmosphere could be poisonous to humans. “But there could be a different form of life that thrives on carbon,” argued Madhusudhan.</p>
<p>Located at a distance of 1200 light years from the earth, the new planet, called WASP-12b, orbits a star slightly hotter than the Sun. As big as Jupiter, it is outside the solar system and different from all known planets.<br /><br />Planets generally have water, dust and oxygen. But not WASP-12, which is the first planet whose atmosphere is highly rich in carbon. <br /><br />“It shows something else is going on in planet formation, opening up a new area for planet formation processes,” said Nikku Madhusudhan from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), principal investigator of the study. <br /><br />A diamond mine<br /><br />WASP-12 is full of gas without any surface. But its discovery suggests there might be smaller rocky carbon-rich planets whose rocks are nothing but diamond and graphite. <br />“If high carbon-oxygen ratios are common, then the formation processes and compositions of extrasolar planets are probably very different,” Madhusudhan and colleagues from other USA and UK reported in “Nature.” <br /><br />The planet orbits the star at a distance 40 times closer than the Earth is to the Sun — making WASP-12b one of the hottest known exoplanets, with a surface temperature exceeding 2,200 degrees Celsius. <br /><br />“Due to a high carbon-oxygen ratio, the planet’s internal chemistry would be different, suggesting the rocks in it may be diamonds and graphite,” Madhusudhan, a former Bangalorean who did his PhD from Banaras Hindu University told Deccan Herald.<br /><br />Discovery <br /><br />The planet was found last year by UK Wide-Angle Search for Planets using the WASP telescope in La Palma. Madhusudhan and his colleagues have now observed WASP-12b with NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope to unearth more details. <br /><br />“A rocky planet in such a planetary system could have an interior abundant in diamonds and a surface littered with graphite and diamonds,” said Joe Harrington, of the University of Central Florida, who led the analysis of the Spitzer data.<br /><br />WASP-12’s atmosphere could be poisonous to humans. “But there could be a different form of life that thrives on carbon,” argued Madhusudhan.</p>
