{"id":37117,"date":"2023-11-30T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4c665881-61bc-4ac5-b8c2-773ffd173561"},"modified":"2023-11-30T21:46:12","modified_gmt":"2023-11-30T20:46:12","slug":"bizarre-giant-planet-could-rewrite-the-rules-of-solar-systems","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/rss_feed\/bizarre-giant-planet-could-rewrite-the-rules-of-solar-systems\/","title":{"rendered":"Bizarre giant planet could rewrite the rules of solar systems"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once upon a time, there was a planet that was too big for its tiny sun. And it threw science into chaos\u2026 <\/p>

By Noa Leach\n <\/p>

Published: Thursday, 30 November 2023 at 19:00 PM<\/p>

\n\n

No, this isn\u2019t a fairy tale: a giant among dwarfs has been discovered \u2013 but in space, in a solar system far from our own.<\/p>

In a new paper published in Science<\/em>, scientists reveal their discovery of a rare planet far too big for its sun<\/a>. The findings challenge everything we know about how planets and their solar systems form \u2013 plus, how scientists model them.<\/p>

\u201cAn object like the one we discovered is likely extremely rare, so detecting it has been really exciting,\u201d said Megan Delamer<\/a>, an astronomy graduate student at Penn State, USA, and co-author on the paper. \u201cOur current theories of planet formation have trouble accounting for what we\u2019re seeing.”<\/p>

The giant planet is 13 times as massive as the Earth \u2013 about the same as Neptune. But what\u2019s weird is that the ultra-cool star that it\u2019s orbiting (known catchily as LHS 3154) is nine times less massive than our Sun<\/a>. That makes the mass ratio of the planet to its star more than 100 times the one between Earth and our Sun.<\/p>

The discovery marks the first time scientists have found such a giant planet orbiting such a small star. In fact, ultra-cool stars are famously the coldest and least massive stars in the Universe.<\/p>

Existing scientific theories say that stars form from vast clouds of dust and gas. And, when they\u2019ve finished, what remains in the discs orbiting the star develops into planets. But LHS 3154 doesn\u2019t have enough mass to make a planet as massive as this one, according to the scientists \u2013 forcing them to re-examine what they know.<\/p>

An artistic rendering of the mass comparison of LHS 3154 system and our own Earth and Sun. – Image credit: Penn State University<\/figcaption><\/figure>

In fact, according to the scientists\u2019 calculations, the dust-to-mass and dust-to-gas ratios around the developing star would need to have been 10 times higher than the model shows for the planet to be so massive.<\/p>

The team discovered the unusual pair when they were searching for planets with liquid water on their surface. This would make them potentially habitable for life.<\/p>

These planets are easier to find when they\u2019re orbiting ultracool stars. That\u2019s because the low temperature often means the planet is closer \u2013 resulting in a more detectable signal for the astronomical spectrograph used to search for them.<\/p>

\u201cThink about it like the star is a campfire. The more the fire cools down, the closer you\u2019ll need to get to that fire to stay warm,\u201d said Suvrath Mahadevan<\/a>, Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State and co-author of the paper.<\/p>

\u201cThe same is true for planets. If the star is colder, then a planet will need to be closer to that star if it is going to be warm enough to contain liquid water. If a planet has a close enough orbit to its ultracool star, we can detect it by seeing a very subtle change in the colour of the star\u2019s spectra or light as it is tugged on by an orbiting planet.\u201d<\/p>

Read more:<\/strong><\/p>