A gas giant exoplanet with the density of a marshmallow has been detected orbiting a cool red … [+]
Astronomers using a telescope in Arizona have discovered a Jupiter-sized planet in the night sky that they say has a density similar to that of a marshmallow.
It is so light that it would float in a tub of water.
TOI-3757 b is an exoplanet – a planet orbiting a star outside our solar system – orbiting a cool red dwarf star of the type that makes up about 70% of the stars in the Milky Way galaxy . It lies about 580 light-years away in the constellation Auriga, which can be seen rising in the east after dark this month from the northern hemisphere.
Its mass has been calculated to be approximately 17 grams per cubic foot/0.27 grams per cubic centimeter. It’s a quarter that of Jupiter, half that of Saturn, and a density similar to that of a marshmallow.
It comes just weeks after barium – which is used to make the green color for fireworks – was discovered in the upper atmospheres of two exoplanets, one of which is receiving “iron rain”.
It’s the fluffiest, lightest gas giant planet ever discovered around a red dwarf star and finding TOI-3757 b is a surprise. Although cooler than stars like our sun, red dwarf stars often trigger powerful flares that are thought to strip a planet of its atmosphere.
“Giant planets around red dwarf stars have always been considered difficult to form,” said Shubham Kanodia, a researcher at the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Earth and Planets Laboratory and first author of a paper published today in The Astrophysical Journal.
Aerial view of the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, AZ, (left to right) showing the KPNO … [+]
So far, astronomers have only been able to find giant Jupiter-sized planets farther away from red dwarf stars. “Finding more such systems with giant planets — which were once thought to be extremely rare around red dwarfs — is part of our goal to understand how planets form,” Kanodia said.
So how did TOI-3757 b form? One of the reasons could be a particularly slow evolution, which affected the accretion of gas and, consequently, its current density, specify the researchers. Another could be its orbit, which researchers suspect is slightly elliptical. If so, then TOI-3757 b will sometimes come particularly close to its host star, which could cause excess heat and a swelling of the planet’s atmosphere.
The planet was originally discovered using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which revealed that it was 100,000 miles/150,000 kilometers in diameter, just larger than Jupiter, and that it had a 3.5 day orbit around its star.
“Potential future observations of this planet’s atmosphere using NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope could help shed light on its puffy nature,” said Pennsylvania State postdoctoral fellow Jessica Libby-Roberts. University and second author of the article.
Astronomers recently suggested that Earth-like exoplanets may be much more common around red dwarfs than previously thought, and that we’ll find an exoplanet within this decade that has oceans, beaches, and continents. .
I wish you clear skies and big eyes.
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