[LINK] On the discovery of exoplanet WASP-142b by teenager Tom Wagg

[rfmcdonald]

The discovery of an exoplanet--a hot Jupiter analogue--by a British schoolboy makes a nice news item. The Toronto Star report "British teen discovers new planet, similar to Jupiter" has the story.

Tom Wagg never expected to find anything much during a week-long placement in the astrophysics department at Keele University in England two years ago.

But when the high school student noticed a dip in light patterns around a star about 1,000 light years from Earth, he thought to himself: “I think I may actually have got one!”

“I never expected anything like this. My main reason for going (there) was to learn more about astrophysics,” Wagg said in a phone interview Friday from the U.K. where he is a student at Newcastle-under-Lyme School in Staffordshire.

Wagg had uncovered a new planet roughly the size of Jupiter, our solar system’s largest planet. It’s located in the southern constellation of Hydra.

Just 15 at the time, Wagg’s discovery may be the most impressive ever made by a budding young scientist, said Coel Hellier, a professor of astrophysics at Keele who supervised the placement.