Mysterious exoplanet 40 times bigger than Earth and 730 light-years away in the ‘hot Neptuian desert’ may be the core of a gas giant
- An exoplanet has been discovered 730 light-years from Earth
- However, it is just the core of what was once a gas giant similar to Saturn
- Cosmic radiation or a collision with another planet resulted in it losing its mass
- The team also suggests that the exoplanet may have not fully formed
- There may not have been enough material for it to build its atmosphere
Experts believe they have discovered a remnant core of an exoplanet that is 40 times that of Earth, allowing them to see the heart of gas giants similar to Jupiter and Saturn.
Dubbed TOI-849b, scientists believe its outer layers could have been scorched by the cosmic radiation of a neighboring star or it collided with another the planet.
Other data suggests that there may not have been enough raw material for the exoplanet to completely form, which only allowed it to develop a core and not a complete atmosphere.
Although TOI-849b’s history still remains a mystery, it does give scientists the first glimpse inside of a gas giant.
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Experts believe they have discovered a remnant core of an exoplanet that is 40 times that of Earth, allowing them to see the heart of gas giants similar to Jupiter and Saturn. Dubbed TOI-849b, scientists believe its outer layers could have been scorched by the cosmic radiation of a neighboring star or it collided with another the planet
TOI-849b was first discovered in 2018 by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), as reported on by Space.com.
Data gathered from the Paranal Observatory in Chile and the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope reveals the exoplanet has a diameter about 3.45 times that of Earth, which is similar to Neptune’s.
All of the information combined shows that TOI-849b is the densest Neptune-size planet discovered to date.
The alien world sits about 730 light-years from Earth in the ‘hot Neptunian desert’, which is a mysterious area in deep space filled with Neptune-size planets that closely orbit their stars.
Experts also think there may not have been enough raw material for the exoplanet to completely form, which only allowed it to develop a core and not a complete atmosphere. Data reveals the exoplanet has a diameter about 3.45 times that of Earth, which is similar to Neptune’s (pictured)
Sean Raymond, an astrophysicist at the Observatory of Bordeaux in France, who did not take part in this research, told Space.com that because there are not a lot of planets of this size, those that are there orbit a star very closely.
Because TOI-849b is in close proximity of its star, the scientists involved with the discovery theorize its atmosphere may have been destroyed by cosmic radiation.
However, they also say that such intense heat would not have been enough to strip the planet down to its core.
The mysterious exoplanet is only about 6.7 billion years old and given the distance from its star, scientists say it would have only lost a few percent of its mass.
It is also possible that TOI-849b collided with another giant planet while moving along its fast orbit – it completes a revolution every 18.4 hours.
Another theory suggests TOI-849b developed in orbit around its star and there was not enough raw material for it to fully form.
However, TOI-849b may have an atmosphere of vaporized rocks and dust that is so thin, only the next generation of telescopes will be able to determine its chemical makeup.
HOW DO SCIENTISTS STUDY THE ATMOSPHERE OF EXOPLANETS?
Distant stars and their orbiting planets often have conditions unlike anything we see in our atmosphere.
To understand these new world’s, and what they are made of, scientists need to be able to detect what their atmospheres consist of.
They often do this by using a telescope similar to Nasa’s Hubble Telescope.
These enormous satellites scan the sky and lock on to exoplanets that Nasa think may be of interest.
Here, the sensors on board perform different forms of analysis.
One of the most important and useful is called absorption spectroscopy.
This form of analysis measures the light that is coming out of a planet’s atmosphere.
Every gas absorbs a slightly different wavelength of light, and when this happens a black line appears on a complete spectrum.
These lines correspond to a very specific molecule, which indicates it’s presence on the planet.
They are often called Fraunhofer lines after the German astronomer and physicist that first discovered them in 1814.
By combining all the different wavelengths of lights, scientists can determine all the chemicals that make up the atmosphere of a planet.
The key is that what is missing, provides the clues to find out what is present.
It is vitally important that this is done by space telescopes, as the atmosphere of Earth would then interfere.
Absorption from chemicals in our atmosphere would skew the sample, which is why it is important to study the light before it has had chance to reach Earth.
This is often used to look for helium, sodium and even oxygen in alien atmospheres.
This diagram shows how light passing from a star and through the atmosphere of an exoplanet produces Fraunhofer lines indicating the presence of key compounds such as sodium or helium