Astronomers have discovered a small rocky planet that orbits dangerously close to its host star and is disintegrating as its surface vaporizes by the stellar heat, followed by a tail of mineral dust similar to that of a kite of up to about 9 million kilometers long.
Since the 1990s around 5800 planets have been discovered outside our solar system, called exoplanets. Of these, only four have been observed disintegrating into orbit, like this. This planet is the closest to our solar system of the four, which gives scientists a unique opportunity to understand what happens to these convicted worlds.
The researchers observed the planet, called BD+05 4868 AB, while gradually disintegrated powder, detaching material equal to the mass of Mount Everest in each orbit around its star. The dust tail that follows the planet surrounds half of the star.
It is estimated that the planet has a size similar to that of mercury, the smallest and interior planet of our solar system, and the moon of the earth. It is about 140 light years from the earth, in the constellation of Pegasus. A light year is the distance that runs the light in a year: 9.5 billion kilometers.
Its host star, a type of star called orange dwarf, is smaller, cold and dim that the sun, with approximately 70% of the mass and diameter of the sun and about 20% of its luminosity. The orbit planet is star every 30.5 hours at approximately 20 times lower than Mercurio del Sol.
It is estimated that the surface temperature of the planet is around 3000 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1600 degrees Celsius) due to its proximity to its star. As a result, it is likely that the planet’s surface has become magma (molten rock).
“We hope that the planet disintegrates powdered within the next million years approximately,” said Marc Hon, postdoctoral researcher at the Kavli Institute of Astrophysics and Space Research of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and main author of the study published Tuesday in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
“This is catastrophicly fast in cosmic time scales. Disintegration is an uncontrolled process. As more material on the planet becomes dust, the disintegration process accelerates,” said Hon.
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Once in space, the vaporized material cools and form mineral dust that moves away from the planet.
“We know that dust grains in the tail can have sizes ranging from large soot particles to fine sand grains,” said Hon. “We still do not know the mineral composition of the tail.”
The researchers detected BD+05 4868 AB through the transit method, observing a decrease in the brightness of the host star when the planet passes in front of it, from the perspective of a terrestrial observer. It was detected using the Tesscope Telescope (NASA exoplanets survey satellite).
It is not clear how the planet came to have its current orbit.
“The data does not show a visible deterioration of the orbit of the planet. It is possible that the planet initially form further and that its original orbit would be altered under the influence of an external body, so that it approached the star much more,” said Hon.
This could have been the result of the gravitational influence of another planet or some other celestial object.
Researchers plan to make more observations in the coming months using NASA’s James Webb space telescope to study the composition of the tail material, which could provide clues about the composition of rock exoplanets. The search for life in other solar systems focuses on rock exoplanets that orbit stars in the “habitable zone”, a distance where liquid water, a key component for life, can exist on the planetary surface.
The tail is expected to contain evaporated minerals of the surface or inside the planet in disintegration. Therefore, it could be the bark, the mantle or even the nucleus of the planet. Knowing the interior of the planets is extremely difficult. Even on planets of our solar system, it is difficult. But BD+05 4868 AB will allow us to directly measure the mineral composition of a land planet outside our solar system, said Hon.
“This is undoubtedly an exceptional opportunity for exoplanets geology and to understand the diversity and potential habitability of rock worlds beyond our solar system,” said Hon.
With Reuters information.
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