Alan Boss is quoted in a Science News online article entitled, “Oversize Orb: Puffy planet poses puzzle.” The article discusses HAT-P-1b, an object located 450 light-years from Earth that may be the largest planet found to date. According to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics team, the planet is 36 percent greater in diameter than Jupiter and resides just one-twentieth the distance from its parent star than Earth is from the Sun.

The object was detected because it passes directly between its parent star, the fainter of a double-star system called ADS 16402, and the Earth about every two hours. During these transits, the planet blocks 1.5 percent of the star’s light from reaching the Earth. HAT-P-1b is the twelfth of the 200 extrasolar planets to be observed transiting across its star.

Only one other transiting planet, HD 209458b, has a density nearly as low as that of HAT-P-1b, and some researchers had regarded HD 209458b as a fluke. Boss comments, “Puffy hot Jupiters do not appear to be as rare as one might have been able to argue before this discovery.” The full article can be accessed here.

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