India's top space agency ISRO discovers new planet, measures mass
New-found planet is six times bigger than Earth and over 600 light years away
The new-found planet orbits its own parent sun, completing one revolution in 19.5 days. Pic for representational purpose only.
The Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) in Ahmedabad found a new planet EPIC 211945201b, after a year-long observation by ISRO scientists. The planet is 27 times the mass of Earth, six times the radius and located over 600 light years away.
Scientists were also able to measure its mass.
According to the Business Insider, the new-found planet orbits its own parent sun, completing one revolution in 19.5 days.
Apart from the discovery, the most incredible part is that only a few of nations that have the capability to explore regions so far away.
The PRL Advance Radial-Velocity Abu-Sky Search (PARAS), India's first telescope designed for infrared observations, caught the trail after NASA's K2, a space observatory, picked up an anomaly. PARAS scientists decided to explore the idea of an exoplanet 'transiting' around the star that K2 had spotted. This finally led to the discovery of a new planet which is a little bigger than Neptune and burns at around 600°C.
