(CNN) Astronomers have discovered an unusually large planet orbiting a small star located about 280 light-years from Earth.
The unexpected size of the newly discovered world, TOI 5205b, has led researchers to call it a “forbidden planet”.
The size of Jupiter was discovered by researchers using it NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS. Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system.
An artist’s illustration shows a large gas giant planet (foreground) orbiting a small red dwarf star called TOI 5205.
The planet-hunting mission, which launched in 2018, examines the light from nearby and bright stars to detect dips in starlight that indicate planets orbiting those stars. The TESS mission has discovered thousands of possible planets.
The exoplanet orbits a red dwarf star called TOI-5205, which is 40% the size and mass of our Sun and has a temperature of 5,660 degrees Fahrenheit (3,127 degrees Celsius) compared to the Sun’s average temperature of 9,980 F (5,527 C). .
An M dwarf star is smaller, cooler and redder than our Sun. These faint stars are very common in the universe, and in recent years, astronomers have discovered that M dwarf stars have planets orbiting them.
But astronomers didn’t expect such small stars to host giant planets — that’s what they discovered when they took a closer look at the TOI-5205 planetary system.
There was a study describing the findings Published on Tuesday Inside Journal of Astronomy.
“The host star, TOI-5205, is four times larger than Jupiter, yet it somehow managed to form a Jupiter-sized planet, which is quite surprising.,” Shubham Kanodia, a postdoctoral fellow at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, said in a statement.
Astronomers have discovered few gas giant planets orbiting older M dwarf stars, but TOI 5205b is the first gas giant found around a low-mass M dwarf star.
Researchers have compared this planet to a pea going around a lemon. In our solar system, Jupiter can be compared to a pea going around a grapevine (standing for our Sun).
For relative size, TOI-5205b (lower left) orbits a red dwarf star (upper left) like a pea orbiting a lemon, and a Jupiter-like planet (lower right) orbits a Sun-like star (upper right). ) is comparable to a pea going around a grapevine.
When TOI 5205b passes in front of its star during its orbit, the planet blocks 7% of its light.
The discovery of a planetary system challenges theories of planet formation.
Stars form from massive clouds of gas and dust in space. Material left over from star formation swirls around the star to form a rotating disc where planets are born.
“The presence of TOI-5205b extends what we know about the disks from which these planets are born,” Kanodia said.
“Initially, if there is not enough rocky material in the disk to form an initial core, a gas giant planet cannot form. Eventually, if the disk evaporates before the formation of a massive core, one. A gas giant planet cannot form. Yet TOI-5205b formed despite these safeguards. Planet Formation Based on our nominal current understanding of TOI-5205b cannot exist; it is a ‘forbidden’ planet.”
Researchers want to use it to monitor the planet in the future The James Webb Space TelescopeIt can be detected as TOI-5205b It has atmosphere and unlocks many secrets about how it is Formed.
Data collected from the Habitable Zone Planet Finder on the 10-meter Hobby-Eberly Telescope at the University of Texas at Austin McDonald Observatory shows the potential for future discoveries, the research team said.
Observations “already point to the existence of many such planets, and TOI-5205 b — surely an outlier — is not the only one,” Kanodia wrote. Blog.
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