Astronomy: Youngest passing exoplanet discovered in "strange" system
The youngest exoplanets are actually still protected from certain detection methods by dust disks. In a "strange" case, this is now different.
Artist's impression of IRAS 04125+2902 b and the twisted dust disk
(Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt, K. Miller (Caltech/IPAC))
A doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has found by far the youngest known exoplanet using the so-called transit method. The celestial body with the designation IRAS 04125+2902 b – or TIDYE-1 b – orbits a star that is just three million years old and is located 430 light years away from us in a "stellar nursery". So far, exoplanets have only been found in this way in stars that are between 10 and 40 million years old, explains the university. In younger stars, the protoplanetary dust disk obscures any exoplanets. The fact that this is not the case with the "baby planet" that has now been discovered is due to a "misaligned" dust disk. How this came about is unclear.
Star system raises questions
Madyson Barber discovered the unusually young exoplanet in the data from the TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) space telescope. This searches for regular eclipses that are caused by exoplanets passing in front of stars. The fact that this transit method worked for TIDYE-1 b is due to the unusually aligned dust disk. Normally, exoplanets would have to remain hidden from this method – but others can work. The fact that an exoplanet has moved so far out of the dust disk in which it was formed must be due to another large object in the star system, adds NASA. Although there is another star in the system, it can probably be ruled out as an explanation.
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Barber goes on to say that she has been looking for young exoplanets at her university's Young Worlds Lab for a while, "and it felt like we weren't finding anything". TIDYE-1 b was one of the first that she did find and then it was such a "strange" one. If she showed it to a colleague, they would all ask: "Really? That's really weird!" Because they know that such a twisted dust disk shouldn't actually exist. It was therefore clear that there was still a lot to find out about the system. The discovery is presented in the journal Nature. The exoplanet takes nine Earth days to orbit, has almost 11 Earth radii and is 90 times the mass of our home planet.
(mho)
