New Transiting Planet Found, Might Force Reanalysis of Planet Formation Theories Options

[Drkskywxlt]

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/press/pr0624.html

"We could be looking at an entirely new class of planets," said Gaspar Bakos, a Hubble fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). Bakos designed and built the HAT network and is lead author of a paper submitted to the Astrophysical Journal describing the discovery.

With a radius about 1.38 times Jupiter's, HAT-P-1 is the largest known planet. In spite of its huge size, its mass is only half that of Jupiter.

Planet is in a double system with the companion at 1500AU.

[Rob Pinnegar]

Sounds like we have a "hot Saturn" here, instead of a "hot Jupiter".