Scientists Discover Mysterious Black Planet

Scientists say they have discovered a distant planet in black that is darker than coal.

As quoted in The Age, Friday (08/12/2011), the planets discovered by scientists dark reflects only one percent of dikitarinya starlight.

"The planet, called TrES-2b is a gas giant like Jupiter-sized, solid as a rock rather than a planet like Earth or Mars," the astronomers said.

Planet TrES-2b orbits the star GSC 03549-02811, about 750 light-years away in the constellation Draco, the Dragon.

"TrES-2b has a darker color of acrylic paint, so the planet is a very mysterious world," said David Kipping, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Mysterious black planet itself was first seen by scientists around five years ago.

The distance between the TrES-2b orbits the star is 5 million kilometers. But why the planet is very little reflected light from the sun? Taking into account the distance between Earth and the sun even more, which is approximately 150 million kilometers.

So it was very close to the star, scientists have predicted that the temperature of the planet TrES-2b is about 1,000 degrees Celsius.

"It is unclear what makes this planet is so dark," says David Spiegel of the University of Princeton.

The study, published in the journal Monthly Notices of the use of unmanned aircraft NASA's Kepler.

Posted in: Mystery,Science