itsfullofstars: ODDBALL EXOPLANET IS DARKER THAN COAL An alien world reflects less than one percent of the starlight that falls on it, making it the blackest exoplanet known. The strange world, TrES-2b, is a gas giant the size of Jupiter, rather than a solid, rocky body like Earth or Mars, astronomers said. It closely orbits the star GSC 03549-02811, located about 750 light years away in the direction of the constellation of Draco the Dragon. “TrES-2b is considerably less reflective than black acrylic paint, so it’s truly an alien world,” David Kipping of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said in a press release issued by Britain’s Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). Keep reading.

itsfullofstars:

ODDBALL EXOPLANET IS DARKER THAN COAL

An alien world reflects less than one percent of the starlight that falls on it, making it the blackest exoplanet known.

The strange world, TrES-2b, is a gas giant the size of Jupiter, rather than a solid, rocky body like Earth or Mars, astronomers said.

It closely orbits the star GSC 03549-02811, located about 750 light years away in the direction of the constellation of Draco the Dragon.

“TrES-2b is considerably less reflective than black acrylic paint, so it’s truly an alien world,” David Kipping of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said in a press release issued by Britain’s Royal Astronomical Society (RAS).

Keep reading.