An astronomer looking through a telescope in Arizona spotted a Jupiter-sized planet in the night sky that appears to be the density of a marshmallow.
It is so light that it even floats on water in a bathtub.
TOI-3757 b is an exoplanet orbiting a star outside our solar system, orbiting one of the cold red dwarf stars that make up about 70% of the stars in the Milky Way. Located about 580 light-years away in the constellation Auriga, it can be seen rising in the east after sunset in the Northern Hemisphere this month.
Its mass is calculated to be about 17 grams per cubic foot, or about 0.27 grams per cubic centimeter. It is a quarter of that of Jupiter, half that of Saturn and is about the density of a marshmallow.
A few weeks earlier, it was discovered that two other exoplanets, one of which had an “iron shower”, had barium in their upper atmospheres, which is used to give fireworks their green color.
The discovery of TOI-3757 b, the softest and lightest gas planet ever discovered around a red dwarf, was something of a surprise. Although red dwarfs are colder than stars like our sun, they often produce powerful flares that could blow up the planet’s atmosphere.
A researcher at the Carnegie Institution’s Earth and Planetary Laboratory, published in the Astrophysical Journal.published articles“It has been thought that giant planets are unlikely to form around red dwarfs,” said Shubham Kanodia, lead author of the study.
Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, where the discovery took place (Getty Images)
Until now, astronomers could only spot giant planets the size of Jupiter at even greater distances from red dwarfs. ‘Until now it was thought that systems with giant planets like this one were extremely rare around red dwarfs, but finding more will help us understand how planets are formed. Is one of our goals,’ said Professor Canodia.
How was TOI-3757 b formed? One reason, according to the researchers, is that evolution was particularly slow, which affected the gas’s growth and thus changed its current density. Another possibility could be that its orbit is slightly elliptical. If so, TOI-3757 b may occasionally approach the orbiting star, causing the planet’s atmosphere to overheat and expand.
Discovered by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), the planet is 100,000 miles (150,000 kilometers) wide, barely larger than Jupiter, and eventually orbited its star in 3.5 days.
Jessica Libby Roberts, a postdoctoral fellow at Pennsylvania State University and second author of the paper, said, “This previous observation of the planet’s atmosphere with NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope reveals its soft nature. It may help. to clarify “.
Astronomers have recently suggested that there may be far more terrestrial exoplanets around red dwarfs than previously thought.An exoplanet with oceans, coasts and continents will be found within the next 10 yearsI’m thinking
