Oct 162013
 

Here’s another extrasolar planet to add to your wish-list of places to visit: COROT-3b. Some details:

Distance: 2200 lightyears, in the constellation Aquila

Mass: 21.66 +/- 1 times that of Jupiter

Diameter: 1.01 +/- 0.07 times that of Jupiter

Surface gravity: 53.6 +/- 8.7 g’s

Note that it’s more than 20 times more massive than Jupiter, but basically the same size. This is only possible because it’s dense. *Really* dense… 26,400 kg/m3, more dense than Osmium. And the vast bulk of that highly dense matter is good ol’ fluffy hydrogen. But it’s under such pressure that the hydrogen has collapsed down past the metallic hydrogen phase. If you could somehow teleport a handful of this stuff out of the planetary core, it would blow up in your face with great enthusiasm.

 Posted by at 5:11 pm