eldavojohn writes “While there’s been a lot of debate about what is a planet, there is a recent discovery that has scientists even more confused. COROT (COnvection ROtation and planetary Transits) spotted an object that appears to be the size of Jupiter yet is 21.6 times larger … and orbits its star in a mere four days and six hours. Now, the other piece of the puzzle is that the star it orbits is larger and only slightly more massive than our Sun. But they can’t describe this thing orbiting it. So far they think it is more prone to be a ‘failed star’ but have settled with ‘member of a new-found family of very massive planets that encircle stars bigger than the sun’ to describe it accurately.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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