Scientists have discovered a new planet beyond the solar system, ‘Phoenix’ that retains its atmosphere despite the extreme radiation it receives from a nearby star, a finding that calls into question current theories about how planets age and die in extreme environments.
In a study published this Wednesday in The Astronomical Journal, researchers maintain that this exoplanet “should have been reduced to bare rock by the intense radiation of the star and, however, it is smaller, older and hotter” than expected. that they thought possible.
Nicknamed ‘Phoenix’ by researchers for its ability to survive the radiant energy of the red giant star, the exoplanet has developed an unusual spongy atmosphere.
“This planet is not evolving as we thought, since it shows a much larger and less dense atmosphere than we believed for the extreme conditions to which it is subjected,” says one of the authors Sam Grunblatt, an astrophysicist at the American University of Johns Hopkins. , in a statement from the center.
The new planet belongs to a category of rare worlds called ‘hot Neptunes’ because they share many similarities with the solar system’s outermost giant icy planet, despite being much closer to their host stars and much warmer.
‘Phoenix’ is 6.2 times larger than Earth, completes an orbit around its parent star every 4.2 days and is about 6 times closer to its star than Mercury is to the Sun.
Scientists estimate that this exoplanet is 60 times less dense than the highest mass ‘hot Neptune’ discovered to date, and that it will not survive more than 100 million years before it begins to die, spiraling towards its giant star.
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“It is the smallest planet we have found around one of these giant red stars, and probably the lowest mass orbiting the host star that we have ever seen, which is why it looks so strange,” says Grunblatt.
“We don’t know why it still has an atmosphere when other much smaller and denser ‘hot Neptunes’ lose them in much less extreme environments,” he adds.
Exoplanets like ‘Phoenix’ are not discovered as frequently because their small size makes them more difficult to detect compared to larger and denser ones; In this case the discovery has been possible thanks to the new method to adjust the data from NASA’s exoplanet satellite observation.
In the authors’ opinion, ‘Phoenix’ illustrates the enormous diversity of solar systems and the complexity of planetary evolution, especially at the end of the life of stars.
“We don’t understand the late evolution of planetary systems very well. This tells us that perhaps the Earth’s atmosphere is not evolving exactly as we thought,” says Grunblatt.
For now, scientists predict that in a few billion years the Sun will expand into a giant red star that will swell and engulf the Earth and the other inner planets, but findings like this could call this theory into question.
With information from EFE.
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