Of all the planets discovered by humans in other solar systems, most of them orbit close to their parent star. This is partly due to the effect of selection: the easiest spot exoplanet (I.e. a planet outside our solar system) Is it close enough to their star (or stars).
So, finding a planet that actually orbits very far away from its parent star is a rare occurrence – so rare, in fact, it’s hard to do even in our own solar system. Indeed, there is much evidence to suggest the existence of a planet much larger than Pluto’s orbit, theoretically Planet Nine; The problem is that it’s almost impossible to find.
This week, the discovery of a The giant Exoplanet 6 336 light-years away, which is 11 times the mass of Jupiter, is a new interest in the discovery of Planet Nine and may give some clues to its discovery. That is because the existence of this exoplanet, called HD106906B, proves that the position of distant, larger planets in the solar system is not only possible, but gives clues as to how it happens.
In a paper published this week, Astronomers examined years of data collected by the Hubble Space Telescope on an exoplanet called HD 106906B. Astronomers first discovered the exoplanet in 2013 with the Magellan Telescope at the Las Campanas Observatory in the Atacama Desert, Chile. At the time, astronomers did not know about the planet’s orbit or its size.
According to New paper, The exoplanet orbits its host star (yes, it’s plural – it’s a binary star system) once every 15,000 human years. As such, it sits very far away from its host twin stars, which is 730 times the distance between Earth and the Sun. That Pluto is about 18 times larger than our Sun.
Another peculiarity about the exoplanet is how it is tilted in its orbit. In context: the sun and all the planets (and most of the solar systems) in our solar system emerged millions of years ago, from the same rotating plant nebula. Because they are all formed from the same material moving in the same direction, the planets in our solar system orbit in the same plane. (Imagine that a piece of clay spins on a clay wheel, and look at the silhouettes that are spread out in the plate; it is similar to what happens in solar systems as it happens to a nebula.) Thus, you can see the edge of the solar system, and everything in line.
Also HD106906 B does not follow that rule. Indeed, it has an “extreme orbit” that is very inclined and elliptical.
“To illustrate why this is strange, we can simply look at our own solar system and see that all the planets are located in approximately the same plane,” said Meiji Nguyen of the University of California-Berkeley, who led the study. Said in a statement. “If science happened, if we say that Jupiter only orbits every other planet, it would be tilted 30 degrees compared to the plane.”
Strange placement in its own solar system raises many questions, but it can also provide answers to the imaginary Planet Nine in our solar system.
As I explained earlier, the so-called Planet Nine is a hot topic in the astronomy community. Over the past decade, many astronomers have suggested that the orbits of Uranus and Neptune mean the existence of a world that is yet to be observed, or possibly some small, heavier foreign object such as a micro-Black hole. (This type of view would not be unprecedented: Neptune was not discovered by direct observation, but because astronomer Alexis Boward observed Uranus in orbit and predicted the existence of an unknown planet, which turned out to be Neptune.) But according to a new paper on Exoplanet HD 106906b, the view behind its bizarre orbit could provide an explanation behind Planet Nine.
Led by Robert de Rosa of the European Southern Observatory in Santiago, Chile, “Despite the lack of discovery of Planet Nine to date, the orbit of the planet can be estimated based on its effect on various outer objects of the outer solar system.” Study analysis, said in a statement. “This suggests that if a planet were really responsible for what we observe in orbit. Trans Neptune objects It should have an eccentric orbit compared to the plane of the solar system. “
De Rosa explained, “This prediction of the orbit of Planet Nine is similar to what we are seeing with the HD 106906B.”
It is possible that Planet Nine was built into the inner solar system and then Jupiter kicked it even further than Pluto – but this is just a theory.
“The planet’s orbit is outside of a very inclined, expansive and dusty debris disk that hosts stars around it,” Avi Loeb, president of Harvard’s astronomy department, told the salon via email. “In that sense, it looks like an orbit set up for Planet 9 in the solar system.”
In A recent paper With his student, Amir Siraj, he suggests that the imaginary planet could be the result of nine-star clusters.
“They can catch planets formed around other stars, especially if they have a companion star with them,” Loeb said. “The captured planets will then be seen on distant and very inclined orbits, as shown by this extra-planetary system HD 106906b and the Putivate Planet Nine of the Solar System.
The origin of the HD 106906B is still unclear: how did it get away from its parent stars, and why did its orbit tilt?
“We do not know for sure where and how the planet was formed,” de Rosa said, referring to the exoplanet. It is likely that both observers and theorists will study HD 106906 for years to come, revealing many of the mysteries of these remarkable planets. System. “
