New planet found, that's blacker than coal

Paris - 13 August 2011 (AFP): A planet orbiting a distant star is darker than coal, reflecting less than 1% of the sunlight falling on it, according to a paper published on Thursday.

The strange world, TrES-2b, is a gas giant the size of Jupiter, rather than a solid, rocky body like Earth or Mars, astronomers said.

It closely orbits the star GSC 03549-02811, located about 750 light years away in the direction of the constellation of Draco the Dragon. "TrES-2b is considerably less reflective than black acrylic paint, so it's truly an alien world," David Kipping of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said.