What's the Biggest Known Planet?

Pluto huggers and haters may hog the spotlight, but there's another debate on the bigger end of the planetary scale. Astronomers have in recent years uncovered super-massive objects that blur the boundary between planet and full-blown star.

The complications go beyond simply defining stars as undergoing thermonuclear fusion. Planet hunters peering at distant stars have found huge orbiting objects which dwarf Jupiter, the largest gas giant planet in our solar system. Such finds may represent the missing links on the sliding scale between planets and stars.

"Taken together, these discoveries are going to change what we call a planet," said Sara Seager, an astrophysicist at MIT. "Until now people have been arguing about how big can an object be and still be a planet."

READ MORE:   Space.com

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