The KELT Scientific Team announced the discovery of a Jupiter-like exoplanet hotter than most stars

Astronomers of the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) project announced the discovery of KELT-9b, the hottest gas giant planet known yet. Lead authors Scott Gaudi of Ohio State, and Keivan Stassun and Karen Collins at Vanderbilt, as part of an international team, reported daytime temperatures of 4,600 Kelvin or 7,800 degrees Fahrenheit, which makes KELT-9b hotter than most stars. Dr. Collins, who received her Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Louisville in 2015, in collaboration with co-author Dr. J. Kielkopf used the University of Louisville telescopes at Moore Observatory in Oldham County and on Mt. Lemon in Arizona to measure small variations in the brightness of the planets host star, while KELT-9b passed by in front of it. These tiny variations reveal information about the orbit, size, and temperature of planets. The discovery was announced at the spring meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Austin, Texas, on Monday June 6th and the team published their results in an article in the journal Nature  this week.

Note: Image source - NASA/JPL-Caltech