(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, named TOI 5205b, has led researchers to call it the “forbidden planet.”
As for Jupiter’s size, researchers found it with NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS. Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system.
The planet-hunting mission, launched in 2018, examines the light from the closest, brightest stars to bathe in that light, suggesting that those stars have planets orbiting them. The TESS mission has discovered thousands of potential planets.
The discovered exoplanet orbits a red dwarf star called TOI-5205, which is about 40% the size and mass of our Sun and has a temperature of about 5,660 degrees Fahrenheit (3,127 degrees Celsius), compared to the Sun’s emitting average of 9.980F (5.5270F). C)
An M dwarf star Smaller, cooler, and redder than our Sun, these faint stars are the most common in the universe, and in recent years astronomers have found more planets than M dwarf stars.
But astronomers didn’t expect such small stars to host giant planets, and that’s what they found when they took a closer look at the TOI-5205 planetary system.
An artist’s illustration shows a large gas giant planet (foreground) orbiting a small red dwarf star named TOI 5205.
There was a study describing the findings Published this Tuesday in The Astronomical Journal.
The star, TOI-5205, is four times larger than Jupiter, but somehow managed to form a Jupiter-sized planet, which is pretty amazing,” said study author Shubham Kanodia, a postdoctoral fellow at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., in a statement.
In the past, astronomers have found some gas giant planets orbiting old M dwarf stars, but TOI 5205b is the first gas giant discovered around a low-mass M dwarf star.
Researchers have compared the planet to a pea orbiting a lemon. In our solar system, Jupiter can be compared to a pea going around a grapevine (instead of our Sun).
When TOI 5205b passes in front of its star during its orbit, the planet blocks 7% of its light.
The discovery of the planetary system challenges theories of planetary formation.
Stars form from massive clouds of gas and dust in space. Material left over from star formation swirls around the star, forming a rotating disc where planets are born.
In terms of sizes, TOI-5205b (lower left) orbits a red dwarf star (upper left) like a lemon, and a Jupiter-like planet (lower right) orbits a Sun-like star. (Top right) Comparable to a pea around a grapevine (Katherine Cain/Carnegie Institution for Science)
“The presence of TOI-5205b expands what we know about the disks from which these planets are born,” Kanodia said.
“First, a gas giant planet cannot form if there is not enough rocky material in the disk to form an initial core. Ultimately, if the disk evaporates before the massive core forms, a gas giant planet cannot form. Despite these obstacles TOI-5205b formed. Our current nominal understanding of planet formation Basically, TOI-5205b should not exist; it is a ‘forbidden’ planet”.
Researchers want to use the James Webb Space Telescope to observe the planet in the future to determine if TOI-5205b has an atmosphere and uncover more secrets about how it formed.
Data collected from the Habitable Zone Planet Finder by the 10-meter Hobby-Eberly Telescope at the McDonald Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin shows the potential for future discoveries, the research team said.
Observations “already indicate the existence of many such planets, and TOI-5205 b, while certainly an outlier, is not the only one,” Kanodia wrote in a statement. Blog.
