NASA scientists have been puzzled by a planetary group that appears to be shrinking. The culprit may be radiation.
All kinds of worlds exist outside our solar system. Far away alien planets, called exoplanets, can be giant gas bodies like Jupiter, rocky spheres about the same size as our planet, or planets as dense as cotton candy. Sometimes it’s “super puffy”.
However, there is a mysterious gap where there should be a planet about 1.5 to 2 times the width of Earth.
A mysterious gap where a planet is supposed to be
Among the more than 5,000 exoplanets discovered by NASA, there are many super-Earths (up to 1.6 times the width of Earth) and sub-Neptunes (about 2 to 4 times the diameter of Earth), but they are few and far between. A planet in between.
“Exoplanet scientists have enough data to say this gap is not a fluke. Something is happening that prevents the planet from reaching this size or staying this size. ” says Jesse Christiansen, a research scientist at the California Institute of Technology and NASA’s exoplanet science lead. the archives said in a press release Wednesday.
Scientists think this is because some sub-Neptunes are shrinking, losing their atmospheres and accelerating the size gap until they are as small as super-Earths.
Christiansen’s latest research suggests that these worlds are shrinking as radiation from the planet’s core pushes the atmosphere out into space.
of studyA paper published Wednesday in the journal Astronomy may solve the mystery of missing exoplanets.
The planet itself may be displacing its atmosphere.
A shrinking exoplanet may lack the mass (and therefore gravity) to hold an atmosphere close.
However, the exact mechanism of atmospheric loss is still unclear.
The new study supports one of the hypotheses, which scientists call “core mass loss,” according to the release.
Core Power Weight Loss is not a new trendy training plan. According to the release, it would cause the planet’s core to emit radiation that would push its atmosphere out from below, causing it to separate from the planet over time.
Another hypothesis, called photoevaporation, is that a planet’s atmosphere is dissipated by radiation from its host star.
However, photoevaporation is thought to occur by the time the planet is 100 million years old, and nuclear-powered mass loss could occur as the planet approaches 1 billion years old, according to the release.
To test the two hypotheses, Christiansen’s team looked at data from NASA’s retired Kepler space telescope.
They examined star clusters that are more than 100 million years old. The planets are thought to be about the same age as their host stars, so the planets in these clusters are old enough to experience photoevaporation, but not old enough for nuclear mass loss to occur. .
Scientists have discovered that most of the planets there retain atmospheres, and that mass loss through the core is likely responsible for the eventual loss of atmosphere.
“However, recent research suggests a continuous mass loss sequence in which both processes operate,” Christiansen wrote on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter), Link In a Harvard University review posted online in July.
So, the mystery is still unsolved.
According to Christiansen’s statement in the release, her research is far from over, especially as our understanding of exoplanets evolves over time.
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