Scientists who are a part of WASP (Wide Area Search for Planets) have just discovered a new planet, WASP-17. Don’t get your hopes up about any life there. WASP-17 might be twice the size of Jupiter (but half the mass) – making it the largest known planet – but it’s a thousand light-years distant from us, orbits backwards – possibly due to a near-collision.

WASP-17 is given its name because it’s the 17th planet outside our solar system that’s been found by the WASP project. Another extrasolar planet, HAT P-7, was recently discovered on a test run of NASA’s Kepler space telescope. HAT P-7, which is about the size of Jupiter and has a “yearly” orbit of just over 2 Earth days, is so close to its sun that the sun-side could be 3000-3500 F more than the opposite side. (Being “tidally locked,” according to Science Daily, one side of the planet is always facing its sun.)