Exoplanet discovered by the Nobel Laureates Mayor and Queloz
Exoplanet discovered by the Nobel Laureates Mayor and Queloz
This artist's impression shows the extrasolar planet 51 Pegasi b, which was discovered in 1995 by Swiss astronomers Didier Queloz and Michel Mayor and is located approximately 50 light years away. The two Geneva scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2019 for this discovery. The name Dimidium was given to the first extrasolar planet discovered orbiting a Sun-like star in a naming competition organised by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The word means 'half' and is intended to indicate that the planet has about half the mass of the planet Jupiter. Dimidium orbits its star Helvetios (51 Pegasi) in the constellation Pegasus, the 'flying horse' in the northern starry sky – in only 4.2 days and on a very tight orbit of only eight million kilometres. This heats up its gas shell to almost 1000 degrees Celsius, which is why the exoplanet is also classified as a 'hot Jupiter'.
