Big planet orbiting really little star

Discovery puts new spin on planet formation

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla, Sept 28, (Agencies): A giant world discovered around a tiny star is putting a new spin on how planets form.

Astronomers reported Thursday they’ve found a Jupiter-like planet orbiting a star that’s a mere 12% the mass of our sun. There may even be another big gas planet lurking in this system 31 light-years away.

The Spanish-led team wrote in the Journal Science that the newly confirmed planet did not form the usual, gradual way, where a solid core of merging particles takes shape before a gas buildup. Instead, in a surprise to scientists, the planet seems to have arisen straight from gas.

Lead author Juan Carlos Morales of the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia said the planet may be almost as big as its star. A year there is about 200 days.

“It was very exciting finding this planet because it was completely unexpected,” Morales wrote in an email. The results indicate “a new population of massive planets may also exist around low-mass stars.”

Morales and his team maintain that gravitational instability in a young star’s disk of gas and dust could, in some cases, result in the quick formation of huge gas planets – even when the star is minuscule. This new world is “an extraordinary candidate” for this process, said Hubert Klahr of Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany, part of the research team. “This find prompts us to review our models.”

In a companion article, Yale University astronomer Greg Laughlin, who

“(DiCaprio’s) supposed to be advised by some of the best ecologists,” said Leo Saldanha, coordinator of the Bangalorebased Environment Support Group, describing the project as “anti-environmental and disastrous”.

“What were they doing? What were they thinking?” asked Saldanha, one of 128 signatories to an open letter to DiCaprio.

DiCaprio did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Oscar-winning actor is a keen conservationist and has granted millions of was not involved in the study, pointed out that more than 4,000 so-called exoplanets have been confirmed in solar systems outside our own. While another new one, by itself, is no longer particularly noteworthy, he said, “one that challenges current theories of planet formation can animate astronomers.”

The planet orbiting this particularly small and cool red dwarf star, officially known as GJ 3512, is at least half the mass of Jupiter. Scientists are unable to measure its dimensions, but models indicate it may be comparable to Jupiter in size, according to Morales.

Using observatories in Spain, the researchers repeatedly studied the star’s wobbling motion to disclose the planet in its lopsided orbit, rather than rely on the transit method in which a brief, periodic dimming of starlight indicates a planet passing in front of its star.

Sampling

The star is so faint it almost didn’t make it into the group’s survey. Scientists needed more small stars for sampling and so added a few at the last minute.

“We were lucky to do so because otherwise we would have never made this discovery,” Ignasi Ribas, director of the Catalonia space studies institute, said in a statement.

Morales and his colleagues continue to search for a second planet orbiting this dwarf star. There may have been a third planet that was ejected from the system long ago, they noted.

Scientists are expressing surprise after discovering a solar system 30 light-years away from Earth that defies current understanding about planet formation, with a large Jupiter-like planet orbiting a diminutive star known as a red dwarf.

Stars generally are much bigger than even the largest planets that orbit them. But in this case, the star and the planet are not much different in size, the researchers said on Thursday.

“Yes, an absolute surprise,” said astrophysicist Juan Carlos Morales of the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia at the Institute of Space Sciences in Spain, who led the research published in the journal Science.

“The discovery was surprising because theoretical formation models suggest that low-mass stars typically host small planets, similar to Earth or small Neptunes. In this case, we have found a gas giant planet similar to Jupiter around a very small star,” Morales added.

The planet, which like Jupiter is composed mainly of gas, was discovered using a telescope at the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain. It travels around its star in a very elliptical orbit lasting 204 days.

Red dwarfs are small, with relatively low surface temperatures. GJ 3512 is not only much smaller than our sun, it is somewhat comparable in size to a very large planet, being only about 35% bigger than Jupiter.

“They emit less energy, so they are fainter than the sun, and their surface temperature is rather cool, below 3800 (degrees) Kelvin (6,380 degrees Fahrenheit/3,527 Celsius) approximately. This is why they have a reddish color,” Morales said.

dollars to environmental causes through his Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, set up in 1998. He also met the Pope to discuss their mutual concern about climate change.

The sharing of water in the Cauvery river has caused tension between India’s southern states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu for more than a century, leading to deadly riots.

Cauvery Calling was started in July by the Isha Foundation, founded by celebrity Indian yogi and mystic Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev who rides motorcycles, travels the world and gives talks on spirituality and yoga. (RTRS)