What was the most shocking discovery about 51 Pegasi-b? A It looked exactly like Earth. It contained a "habitable zone". It was discovered by the "transit method". It was a gas planet so close to its star.

Question

What was the most shocking discovery about 51 Pegasi-b? A It looked exactly like Earth. It contained a "habitable zone". It was discovered by the "transit method". It was a gas planet so close to its star.

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(D) It was a gas planet so close to its star.

Answer 2

51 Pegasi b is the first planet like Jupiter discovered outside the Solar System orbiting a sunlike star, so any of these could have been considered a shocking discovery at the time. However, judging from our current knowledge about the discovery of 51 Pegasi b, the most shocking detail known by the scientific community was its close proximity to its star, quite different from our experience with our own Solar System, where gas giants are far from the Sun. Referred to as a "hot Jupiter," 51 Pegasi b challenged our model of planet formation and changed the way we search for exoplanets.

Question

What was the most shocking discovery about 51 Pegasi-b? A It looked exactly like Earth. It contained a "habitable zone". It was discovered by the "transit method". It was a gas planet so close to its star.

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Explanation