An international group of astronomers has revealed that an eccentric exoplanet, located 31 light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo, is denser than previously thought, and is a solid ball of metal.
The planet, called Gliese 367 b, or Tahay, revolves around a nearby red dwarf star, and not much was known about it until scientists recently decided to delve deeper into the mystery of its mineral composition.
The study was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letter, which gives more accurate measurements of the planet’s mass and radius.
Taihai consists mostly of rock and iron and is approximately the same size as Earth, which allowed it to be captured by current techniques.
“You can compare GJ 367 b to an Earth-like planet with its lithosphere removed,” Elisa Goffo, lead author at the University of Turin, told ScienceAlert.
Tahai was first discovered in 2021, by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey (TESS) space photometry method as it orbited near its small, dim red dwarf host star. Scientists reported at the time that it was a planet with a very short orbit, because it revolved around its host star in only 7.7 hours, which is a mysterious and not well-studied category of outer worlds.
Scientists pointed out at the time that Gliese 367 b is a rocky world that is about 70% the size of Earth and 55% of its mass, making it one of the lightest exoplanets known.
But recent research showed something that shocked scientists, as the results found that Tahai is denser than what the 2021 study found.
GJ 367 b is defined as an ultra-dense exoplanet. According to the new data, the exoplanet has a radius of 70% of Earth’s radius, instead of the 72% that was previously estimated, and its mass is 63% of Earth’s mass, instead of 55%.
The team concluded that Tahai’s density is twice that of Earth. The secret is that the study also revealed that Taihai may have experienced a catastrophic event in the past that left it mostly bare of metal.
According to the study authors, this information can be proven by combining new measurements obtained from TESS and the HARPS spectrometer, connected to the European Southern Observatory (ESO) telescope.
Jovo suggested that this celestial body had a formation process similar to that of Earth, and appeared to have a “dense core composed mainly of iron, surrounded by a silicate-rich mantle.”
The astronomer said that the most likely hypotheses about its origin indicate that “a catastrophic event could have torn apart the rocky mantle, leaving the planet’s dense core bare.” This may have happened due to collisions between GJ 367 b and other protoplanets, which ended up removing its outer layer. Jovo put forward another third theory, in which it is believed that this planet “was born in an iron-rich region in the protoplanetary disk.”
Source: The Sun
