In a search that could change our understanding of astronomy, an international team of astronomers reported Wednesday that they believe the unbroken exoplanet is orbiting tightly around a white dwarf, something that was previously considered impossible.
The authors write in an article published for the scientific journal Nature, “Every 1.4 days we report an observation of a giant planet candidate transitioning into a white dwarf WD 1856 + 534.” “Transiting” means when a planet eclipses a star that orbits the Earth from our point of view, and is a common tool by which astronomers search for exoplanets. The paper also explains that the planet candidate is about the size of Jupiter.
Part of the reason this research is so bizarre is that it greatly disregards what we know about the formation of the planet, as the researchers involved in this study explained to Salon. Rewandrew Vanderberg, an assistant professor of astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who contributed to the paper, explained the potential significance of the discovery.
Nuclear fusion reactions “burn” hydrogen fuel like our sun, which heats us and other planets. When the stars run out of hydrogen, however, “many unusual processes will occur,” Wonderberg explains. “The first star will swell and really, really get bigger. This is kind of like death. Once it’s out of hydrogen, it starts burning helium and turns into carbon and oxygen, eventually. But this one is inefficient. Processes and does not last very long so the star loses its mass very quickly after it runs out of hydrogen, so the outer layers of the star move all the way into space, and what is left is the hot core. does not produce. “
It explains the hot core, Wonderberg, which we call the white dwarf – and one definition of a white dwarf is that, due to the strong force of its gravity, it pulls the celestial body towards it and breaks them. Process. The potential planet discovered by scientists using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and the retired Spitzer Space Telescope, however, remains intact. If this is further tested, it will be unprecedented.
Vunderberg explained, “We think the explanation is most likely that there were other planets in the system or there were other objects in the system.” “We know that this white dwarf has two other stars orbiting very far away. Maybe they could have made a small impact on this planet that we saw later when it was orbiting so far away because it was orbiting so far away. , Or it would have been surrounded by it. It could have changed its orbit so that it was very, very elliptical, and then when it came close to the star, it barely grazed the surface. “
He added, “Another alternative explanation is that the planet would actually be surrounded by stars, but it was high enough to defend itself.”
Vunderberg also said that, like the recent discovery of phosphine gas in the atmosphere of Venus, new discoveries about this planet could suggest new types of planets to find life.
“I think the biggest impact of this is the potential to be in places in life that we didn’t think of before,” Wonderberg told Salon. “It’s not that people can have life around a white dwarf – people speculated for a while – but our biggest question was’ Can the planets really come into systems where they need to be in order. Life is like on Earth. Is, but also around it [a] White dwarf? ”
As Wonderberg points out, planets are only supposed to be capable of sustaining life if they are in a “habitable zone” – that is, close enough to benefit from the heat of a given star but not so close that heat eliminates the necessary conditions. To support life.
“In the white dwarf system there is also a habitable zone, but the white dwarf is really small and it gives coolness and is really stupid, you have to go very close to that star to stay potentially habitable,” Wonderberg told Salon. If astronomers’ latest findings come out, it “necessarily tells us how they can do it.”
