A newly discovered gasgiant planet with a nearly circular orbit around its parent star is the first Jupiterlike planet outside our solar systemor "exoplanet"that can be studied in detail, a new study says.



Located about 1,500 lightyears from Earth in the constellation Serpens, the planet Corot9b passes in front of its star every 95 days, as viewed from Earth. Each of these "transits" lasts about eight hours.



When Corot9b is positioned between its star and Earth, some of the light from its star passes through the exoplanet's atmosphere before continuing on to our planet.



By studying this filtered starlight, black friday uggs astronomers may be able to determine what molecules make up Corot9b's atmosphere.



(Related: "Distant Planet Mapped for First Time, "Hot Jupiter" Features Fierce Winds.")



"We hope that when we can investigate this planet, it will have characteristics which are close to other giant gas planets outside our solar system," Moutou said.



That's because Corot9b's physical properties are thought to be representative of many gas giant exoplanets in our galaxy. So studying Corot9b in detail could shed light on worlds that do not transit, and thus are uggs cyber monday impossible for astronomers to research.



New Planet Similar to Jupiter and Saturn



The filteredsunlight technique has been used to study the atmospheric compositions of other gas exoplanets with great success.



However, those planets orbit much closer to their stars than Corot9b and are thus much hotter.



As a result, these "hot Jupiters" are not thought to be good analogs for low and moderatetemperature gas giants, which astronomers think make up a large bulk of exoplanets. (Get more facts about the universe.)



In contrast, the distance between Corot9b and its star is about ten times greater than that of hot Jupiter systems. Its surface temperature is estimated to be between 4 degrees and 320 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees and 160 degrees Celsius).