NASA
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Illustration of a gas giant exoplanet orbiting a G-type star, similar to TOI-2180 b.
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Nationalgeographic.co.id—A UC Riverside astronomer and a group of eagle-eyed citizen scientists have discovered planet gas raksasa which has been hidden from view all this time. Thanks to a typical stargazing tool, the planet was finally detected.
The planet, named TOI-2180 b, has the same diameter as Jupiter, but is nearly three times as large. Researchers also believe the planet contains 105 times the mass of Earth in elements heavier than helium and hydrogen. Nothing like it exists in our solar system.
Details of these findings have been published in The Astronomical Journal on January 13, 2022 entitled The TESS-Keck Survey. VIII. Confirmation of a Transiting Giant Planet on an Eccentric 261 Day Orbit with the Automated Planet Finder Telescope* and presented at the American Astronomical Society’s virtual press event at that time.
“TOI-2180 b is a very interesting planet to find,” said UCR astronomer Paul Dalba, who helped confirm the planet’s existence. “It hits a trifecta of 1) having an orbit of several hundred days, 2) being relatively close to Earth (379 light-years is considered close for an exoplanet), and 3) we can see it transiting in front of its star. It’s very rare for astronomers to find a planet. who checks these three boxes.” he continued.
Laurie Hatch/Lick Observatory
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Lick Observatory Automatic Planet Finder, used to help calculate the mass and orbit of a new planet.
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Dalba also explains that the planet is special in that it takes 261 days to complete its journey around its star, a relatively long time compared to many known gas giants outside our solar system. Its relative proximity to Earth and the brightness of the stars it orbits also allow astronomers to learn more about it in the future.
To find exoplanets, orbiting stars other than our sun, NASA’s TESS satellite looks at one part of the sky for a month, then moves. He was looking for the decrease in brightness that occurs when a planet passes in front of a star.
“The rule of thumb is that we need to see three ‘drops’ or transits before we can be sure we’ve found a planet,” Dalba said. Single transit events can be caused by telescopes with jitter, or stars masquerading as planets. For this reason, TESS does not focus on this single transit event. However, a small group of citizen scientists are trying to make sense of it.
Looking at the TESS data, Tom Jacobs, a member of the group and a former US naval officer, saw the faint glow of the star TOI-2180, only once. His group alerted Dalba, who specializes in studying planets that take a long time to orbit their stars.
Using the Lick Observatory’s Automatic Planet Search Telescope, Dalba and his colleagues observed the planet’s gravitational pull on the star, which allowed them to calculate the mass of TOI-2180 b and estimate various possibilities for its orbit.
Hoping to observe a second transit event, Dalba organized a campaign using 14 different telescopes on three continents in the northern hemisphere. Over 11 days in August 2021, the effort produced 20,000 images of the star TOI-2180, although none of them detected the planet with certainty.
NASA
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The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or, TESS, also contributed to the discovery of the planet.
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However, the campaign did manage to lead the group to predict that TESS will see its stellar transiting planet again in February, when they plan follow-up studies. Funding for Dalba’s research was provided by the National Science Foundation’s Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship Program.
Citizen planet-hunting groups take publicly available data from NASA satellites such as TESS and search for single transit events. While professional astronomers use algorithms to scan a lot of data automatically, the Visual Survey Group uses a program they created to examine telescope data by eye.
“The effort they put in is both significant and impressive, as it is difficult to write code that can reliably identify a single transit event,” Dalba said. “This is one area where humans are still beating the code.” he concluded.
Also Read: Astronomers Find a Giant Planet 7.4 Billion Years Old
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