AstronomyAstronomers discover WASP-193b, a giant planet with a density...

Astronomers discover WASP-193b, a giant planet with a density similar to that of cotton candy

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WASP-193 b as an beautiful goal for atmospheric characterization. a, Artificial transmission spectrum mannequin and best-fit mannequin for the injection-retrieval take a look at for a single JWST/NIRSpec/Prism transit of WASP-193 b. Fashions and checks are produced with the TIERRA pipeline . b, Posterior likelihood distributions of the important thing planetary properties retrieved, showcasing that one single JWST go to can yield the constraints on the primary atmospheric properties and the planetary mass inside ~0.1 dex and ~1%, respectively. The purple line represents the true worth utilized in producing the artificial spectrum. MR is the quantity mixing ratio and P0 is the reference strain similar to reference radius. Credit score: Nature Astronomy (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-024-02259-y

A global staff led by researchers from the EXOTIC Laboratory of the College of Liège, in collaboration with MIT and the Astrophysics Institute in Andalusia, has simply found WASP-193b, a very low-density big planet orbiting a distant sun-like star.

This new planet, situated 1,200 light-years from Earth, is 50% bigger than Jupiter however seven occasions much less huge, giving it an especially low density corresponding to that of cotton sweet.

“WASP-193b is the second least dense planet found to this point, after Kepler-51d, which is way smaller,” explains Khalid Barkaoui, a Postdoctoral Researcher at ULiège’s EXOTIC Laboratory and first creator of the article published in Nature Astronomy.

“Its extraordinarily low density makes it an actual anomaly among the many greater than 5 thousand exoplanets found to this point. This extraordinarily low density can’t be reproduced by standard models of irradiated fuel giants, even beneath the unrealistic assumption of a coreless construction.”

The brand new planet was initially noticed by the Extensive Angle Seek for Planets (WASP), a world collaboration of educational establishments that collectively operated two robotic observatories, one within the northern hemisphere and the opposite within the south. Every observatory used an array of wide-angle cameras to measure the brightness of 1000’s of particular person stars throughout the complete sky.

In knowledge taken between 2006 and 2008, and once more from 2011 to 2012, the WASP-South observatory detected periodic transits, or dips in mild, from the star WASP-193. Astronomers decided that the star’s periodic dips in brightness have been in keeping with a planet passing in entrance of the star each 6.25 days. The scientists measured the quantity of sunshine the planet blocked with every transit, which gave them an estimate of the planet’s measurement.

The staff used then the TRAPPIST-South and SPECULOOS-South observatories—directed by Michaël Gillon, FNRS Analysis Director and astrophysicist at ULiège—situated within the Atacama Desert in Chile to measure the planetary sign in several wavelengths and to validate the planetary nature of the eclipsing object.

Lastly, additionally they used spectroscopic observations collected by the HARPS and CORALIE spectrographs—additionally situated in Chile (ESO)—to measure the mass of the planet.

To their nice shock, the amassed measurements revealed an especially low density for the planet. Its mass and its measurement, they calculated, have been about 0.14 and 1.5 that of Jupiter, respectively. The ensuing density got here out to about 0.059 grams per cubic centimeter.

Jupiter’s density, in distinction, is about 1.33 grams per cubic centimeter; and Earth is a extra substantial 5.51 grams per cubic centimeter. One of many supplies closest in density to the brand new, puffy planet, is cotton sweet, which has a density of about 0.05 grams per cubic centimeter.

“The planet is so mild that it is troublesome to think about a similar, solid-state materials,” says Julien de Wit, professor at Massachusetts Institute of Expertise (MIT) and co-author. “The rationale why it is near cotton sweet is as a result of each are just about air. The planet is principally tremendous fluffy.”

The researchers suspect that the brand new planet is made largely from hydrogen and helium, like most different fuel giants within the galaxy. For WASP-193b, these gases possible type a vastly inflated ambiance that extends tens of 1000’s of kilometers farther than Jupiter’s personal ambiance. Precisely how a planet can inflate a lot is a query that no present idea of planetary formation can but reply. It definitely requires a major deposit of power deep into the planet’s inside, however the particulars of the mechanism should not but understood.

“We do not know the place to place this planet in all of the formation theories we’ve proper now, as a result of it is an outlier of all of them. We can’t clarify how this planet was fashioned. Trying extra carefully at its ambiance will permit us to constrain an evolutionary path of this planet,” provides Francisco Pozuelos, astronomer on the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (IAA-CSIC, Granada, Spain).

“WASP-193b is a cosmic thriller. Fixing it is going to require some extra observational and theoretical work, notably to measure its atmospheric properties with the JWST space telescope and to confront them to completely different theoretical mechanisms that presumably end in such an excessive inflation,” concludes Barkaoui.

Extra data:
An prolonged low-density ambiance across the Jupiter-sized planet WASP-193 b,, Nature Astronomy (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-024-02259-y

Quotation:
Astronomers uncover WASP-193b, a large planet with a density much like that of cotton sweet (2024, Could 14)
retrieved 14 Could 2024
from https://phys.org/information/2024-05-astronomers-wasp-193b-giant-planet.html

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