‘Superpuff‘ planets are as dense as cotton candy

A pair of newly found planets are the puffiest worlds ever seen. They’re both about the size of Jupiter but with less than 6 percent of its mass.

In terms of density, these planets are “like candy floss or shaving foam,” says George Dransfield. She’s an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford in England. “They’re the lightest planets that are Jupiter-sized.”

Both orbit TOI 791. That’s a sunlike star about 1,113 light-years from Earth. The TESS space telescope spotted them as they passed — or transited — in front of their star and blocked some of its light. Comparing the star when it was blocked and unblocked let Dransfield and others measure the planets’ width.

One world is about 0.993 times as wide as Jupiter. The other has about 1.155 times Jupiter’s width.

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