Skip to main content

‘Monster’ Planet Discovery Challenges Formation Theory

Artist’s illustration of a "hot Jupiter". Image Credit: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss


A new research presents the discovery of NGTS-1b, a hot-Jupiter transiting an early M-dwarf host in a P~2.6 days orbit discovered as part of the Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS).

The planet has a mass of M~0.8 M(jupiter) making it the most massive planet ever discovered transiting an M-dwarf. NGTS-1b is the third transiting giant planet found around an M-dwarf, reinforcing the notion that close-in gas giants can form and migrate similar to the known population of hot Jupiters around solar type stars.

The existence of the 'monster' planet, 'NGTS-1b', challenges theories of planet formation which state that a planet of this size could not be formed around such a small star. According to these theories, small stars can readily form rocky planets but do not gather enough material together to form Jupiter-sized planets.

Such massive planets were not thought to exist around such small stars. The challenge now is to find out how common these types of planets are in the Galaxy.

M-dwarf stars as planetary hosts are of high interest. Two important recent discoveries in the field of exoplanets relate to planets orbiting M-dwarfs: Proxima Centauri and Trappist-1.

The  low  intrinsic  luminosity  of  M-dwarfs also means that the habitable zone is very close to the host star and therefore it is much easier to detect potential habitable  planets  around  these  stars, compared  to  their  more massive counterparts. Finally, M-dwarfs are the most populous  stars  in  the  Galaxy and hence understanding planet formation and planet frequency around these low mass stars greatly enhances our knowledge of the full population of planets in the Galaxy.

The  discovery  of  NGTS-1b  demonstrates  the  capability  of NGTS  to  probe  early  M-dwarfs  for  transiting  planets. In the full course of the survey, enough early M-dwarfs will be monitored to allow us to provide statistics for  these  host  stars  such  as  the  frequency  of  hot  Jupiters around early M-dwarfs.

Resources


 NGTS-1b: A hot Jupiter transiting an M-dwarf - (arXiv)

‘Monster’ Planet Discovery Challenges Formation Theory

Next Post



Etichette:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE HITCHCHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE LOCAL SUPERCLUSTER

Image: Virgo Supercluster. Credit: Andrew Z. Colvin The Virgo Supercluster is a region with a diameter of 33 megaparsecs (~1000 times larger the Milky Way's diameter) containing at least 100 galaxy groups and clusters.
Post a Comment
Read more

ORIGIN OF RADIO EMISSION IN RADIO-QUIET QUASARS

Image Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Radio emission of radio-quiet quasars may be due to stars formation in the quasar host galaxy, to a jet launched by the supermassive black hole, or to relativistic particles accelerated in a wide-angle radiatively-driven outflow.
Post a Comment
Read more

Dawn Finds Possible Ancient Ocean Remnants at Ceres

This animation shows dwarf planet Ceres as seen by NASA's Dawn. The map overlaid at right gives scientists hints about Ceres' internal structure from gravity measurements. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA Minerals containing water are widespread on Ceres, suggesting the dwarf planet may have had a global ocean in the past. What became of that ocean? Could Ceres still have liquid today? Two new studies from NASA's Dawn mission shed light on these questions. The Dawn team found that Ceres' crust is a mixture of ice, salts and hydrated materials that were subjected to past and possibly recent geologic activity, and that this crust represents most of that ancient ocean. The second study builds off the first and suggests there is a softer, easily deformable layer beneath Ceres' rigid surface crust, which could be the signature of residual liquid left over from the ocean, too. "More and more, we are learning that Ceres is a complex, dynamic world ...
Post a Comment
Read more