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COROT-23b is an extrasolar planet detected by the French-led COROT mission, which orbits the star COROT-23 at a distance of 1960 light years from Earth towards the constellation Aquila. After its discovery via the transit method, its mass was confirmed via the radial velocity method.

Characteristics


The planet is a large hot Jupiter, about 1.43 times the radius of Jupiter and approximately 3.3 times as massive. Its huge size is due to the intense heating from its parent star, which causes the outer layers of its atmosphere to bloat. The extremely large radius of the planet indicates that COROT-2b is really hot, estimated to be around 1500 K, even hotter than would be expected given its location close to its parent star. This fact may be a sign of tidal heating due to interactions with another planet. At Jupiter-like distances its radius would roughly be the same as Jupiter.

COROT-2b orbits its star approximately once every 1.7 days, and orbits the star in a prograde direction close to the star's equator. Its parent star is a G-type star, a bit cooler than the Sun but more active. It is located about 800 light-years from Earth.

It takes 125 minutes to transit its star.

As of August 2008, the COROT-2b spin-orbit angle (that is, the angle between the equator of the star and the plane of the planet orbit) was calculated by Bouchy et al. by mean of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect with a value of +7.2 ± 4.5 degrees.