March 11, 2005
(PLANETQUEST) -- An international team of astronomers searching for new planets has discovered something unexpected - a star only slightly larger than the planet Jupiter.
The new star, part of a binary system, was discovered using the "transit" method, which measures the slight dip in a star's brightness that occurs when a smaller object passes in front of it. The tiny star, named OGLE-TR-122, decreases the light reaching the Earth from its larger companion by 1.5 percent during each orbit.
Astronomers said the future planet searches that use the "transit" method will have to be careful to distinguish between stellar imposters such as OGLE-TR-122 and true planets.
The new star is 96 times heavier than planet Jupiter, but only 16% larger. Furthermore, it is smaller than many of the 146 extrasolar planets that have been discovered thus far.
The recent observations also detected seven other small stars with masses below one-third the mass of the Sun, indicating that such stars are not rare, according to a European Southern Observatory (ESO).
The observations were carried out using the ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile.
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