Scientists have discovered a mass that failed to become a star and became a planet

Astronomers have discovered a massive mass that challenges the science of the formation of extrasolar planets, suggesting that some planets may have formed during the same process of star formation.

On some levels, the formation of stars and planets is simple: they form where there is a lot of matter. While the raw material of a star may be a scattered cloud of gas, its gas distribution is not entirely uniform. Over time, the gravitational pull of regions that are somewhat more material will draw in more material and eventually provide enough material to form a star.

In many cases, more than one dense region of matter is formed. In other cases, even a dense area of matter can be divided into two parts. Planets are also formed where there is a higher density of matter, and are produced by the disk of matter that feeds the star that is forming.

While this may be true in general, there are some problems. There it is. For example, there is no clear line of demarcation between small stars such as brown dwarfs and giant planets in a group called Super-Jupiter, and it seems that there are only a handful of planets we can image directly. , Orbiting at a distance from their host star, where it is estimated that there should not be too much material to form them. It is orbiting far from the central star. This imaging shows that this extrasolar planet is probably formed by a similar process that usually produces stars, rather than by a process that builds gas giants like Jupiter.

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Confirmation in archival data

The central star of this system is called" AB Aurigae ", a very young star in the distance It is about 500 light years from the sun. The star is trapped in a cloud of gas, parts of which are likely still falling into the star. There is also a cloud of dust in the distance, which for some reason is thought to be a good option for forming a planet. The first is that the dust is separated from the star closer, and the second is that the gas in the inner disk is converted to spiral arms by gravitational pull.

So a team of researchers They used the telescope to search for planets on the Ibi Arabian Peninsula, and apparently managed to find one that is now called the AB Aurigae b. This extrasolar mass is about 100 astronomical units (AU) away from the parent star, which is 100 times the distance between the earth and the sun and more than twice the distance between the sun and Pluto.

It places Ebi Chariot B inside the dust ring in a position where it must be able to create the helical arms seen in the gas between the dust and the star. This distance will also be outside the region where the high density of matter causes natural planets to form. . These images clearly show that the ebony of the chariot is orbiting around the central star.

Telescopic image of Abyssinian system Used modeling. These models show that although the planet is still growing, its mass is currently at least four times that of Jupiter. An alternative approach to modeling suggests that the mass should be nine times that of Jupiter, but in any case, this extrasolar planet is definitely in the super-client category.

Imaging Also some It shows comorbid objects that are similar to the Ebi of the chariots, but even farther away, at distances of 430 and 580 astronomical units. These may be other planets, but more observations are needed to confirm this.

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What Happens

But what's happening in this star system? Near a host star, gas giants are thought to form from the accumulation of a large rocky nucleus that begins to draw gas toward it. This increases the mass and growth of the growing planet It makes it more. This growth increases but eventually stops because after a while the gas that feeds it is expelled by the radiation of a young star.

The distances seen in this system of extrasolar stars are unlikely to occur. On the one hand, more gas must adhere to the core around the core for a longer period of time, and on the other hand, there is not enough material density to build a large nucleus, and incremental growth never begins.

But the proposed alternative process , Is a process similar to what creates a binary star system. Random fluctuations in the amount of matter cause matter to be concentrated in an area that has a function similar to that of a rock nucleus, and because the site of its formation is far from the star, there will be an opportunity to continue the growth and production of a supercustomer.

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Cover photo: Graphic design of the extrasolar planet AB Aurigae b
Credit : NASA/ESA/Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

Source: Ars Technica