Four mysterious giant planets were found where they should not exist
Four mysterious giant planets were found where they should not exist
Every time we think we have a good idea of how things work in space, something comes along and tells us otherwise. In this case, they are our models of how planets and star systems are formed. Astronomers in Chile Recently discovered Four gaseous giant giants in a star system that should be too young to have formed these massive planets.
CI Tau is a baby. It is only two million years old and is still surrounded by its protoplanetary disk, the swirling mass of dust that will eventually become planets as gravity and time continue to apply their strange magic to the system. The strange thing is that in this protoplanetary disk there are conspicuous gaps, and in those gaps are formed gas giant giants already formed. Scientists have no idea how they got there.
Protoplanetary disk. Image via NASA / JPL-Caltech
One of the planets, the closest to CI Tau, was already known to astronomers. This monster of a planet, known as CI Tau b, is approximately 10 times larger than Jupiter and orbits CI Tau once every nine days. When astronomers discovered CI Tau b, it was the first so-called "hot Jupiter" ever discovered around such a young star. Hot Jupiters are gaseous giants that orbit their star at very close distances and at very high speeds. CI Tau b is closer to its sun than Mercury than ours. Hot Jupiter already seem challenge assumptions about how solar systems are formed, and finding one around such a young star was even stranger. The other hot Jupiters found belonged to star systems hundreds of times older than CI Tau b. Now it turns out that this anomaly of one planet has three other neighbors that are even more surprising and strange.
What would a hot Jupiter look like? Image via NASA / JPL-Caltech / MIT / Principia College
The discovery of the three new planets was detailed in a new article. published in the Card astrophysics magazine. The next planet that comes out of CI Tau b is about the size of Jupiter, and it orbits CI Tau at a distance of 13 AU (astronomical units, one AU is the distance from Earth to the Sun, approximately 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers). Further away are the two most mysterious planets in the system. These are both about the size of Saturn and orbit at distances of 39 and 100 AU. Another thing that makes this system so strange is that the farthest planet is 1000 times farther away than the innermost planet, a variation in distance that is almost never seen in star systems. At such extreme distances, it is assumed that it will take a long time for Saturn-sized planets to form. According to Professor Cathie Clark, lead author of the article:
"Saturn mass planets are supposed to be formed by first accumulating a solid core and then pulling a gas layer at the top, but these processes are supposed to be very slow at great distances from the star. Most models will fight to make planets of this mass at this distance. "
More observations of these strange planets will be required, even to make sense of how they were formed. Regardless of what we find, it is likely to further challenge our assumptions about how planets are formed. Especially if we find a factory of alien planets hidden in the protoplanetary disk. Probable? Not at all. But it would be very good.
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