First 'Cotton Candy' class of exo-planet
Who
Super Puff Planets
What
First first
Where
Unzutreffend ()
When

In December 2019, NASA scientists using data from the Hubble Space Telescope, announced they had identified three exo-planets that fall outside of the normal classification of rocky Earth-like planets, ice giants like Neptune, and gas giants like Jupiter. This new type of planet is called a 'Super Puff' planet and exhibits extraordinary low density; similar to cotton candy (or candyfloss). The planets were first identified in a sudy by the Kepler Space Telescope in 2012, but it was not until the HST measured the orbit and eclipsing data from these candidates that their low density and sizes (in excess of Jupiter) proved that they were massive, low density objects that theoretically should not exist!