Astronomers have identified the least dense double giants in space, which have a density lower than that of cotton candy. The two newly discovered exoplanets TOI-791b and TOI-791c have a density of 0.038 grams per cubic centimetre and 0.047 grams per cubic centimetre, respectively.
The two planets revolve around an F7-class dwarf star which is about 1,110 light-years away from our planet in the southern constellation named Volans.Â
The density of the planet Jupiter is 1.33 grams per cubic centimetre, which is roughly 28 to 35 times denser than the newly discovered planets.
“These two planets have densities similar to shaving foam fresh out of the can,” said Dr George Dransfield, a researcher at the University of Oxford, in a statement. Less than 40 super-puffs have been found among the almost 6,300 known exoplanets.
TOI-791 b and TOI-791 c were originally detected as potential planets in 2019 and 2023, respectively, by Planet Hunters TESS citizen science volunteers, who look for possible new planets in NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite data.
The research and observations took more than seven years of ground-based studies, including continuous observations in Antarctica that revealed the orbital paths of the planets.
The planets orbit the sun in the ratio of 5 to 3, which means that while the inner one completes five orbits around the sun, the outer one completes three. They are most likely composed of hydrogen and helium, but more research is required to prove it using NASA’s Webb Space Telescope.
