Kepler-51d exoplanet challenges astronomers
A newly studied exoplanet, Kepler-51d, being examined by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is presenting challenges to astronomers. The planet is surrounded by an unusually dense layer of haze that could be hiding its makeup and formation.
A team led by Penn State researchers took a closer look at the “super-puff” planet, which already challenges many ideas about planet development. The haze surrounding Kepler-51d appears to be the thickest ever detected on a planet, making it even more difficult to identify the chemical makeup or origins of the planet. The findings were published on 16th March in the Astronomical Journal.
Kepler-51 is a star around 2,615 light years away in the Cygnus constellation. It is known to have four planets orbiting it, three of which are “super-puffs.” These are around the same size as Saturn but are only a few times as massive as Earth. Kepler-51d stands out among them in being the coolest and least dense.
“We think the three inner planets orbiting Kepler-51 have tiny cores and huge atmospheres giving them a density akin to cotton candy,” said Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds Postdoctoral Fellow at Penn State at the time of the research and first author of the paper, Jessical Libby-Roberts. “These ultra-low-density super-puff planets are rare, and they defy conventional understanding of how gas giants form. And if explaining how one formed wasn’t difficult enough, this system has three!”
Gas giants usually form with dense cores which generate a strong gravity. This allows them to pull in and hold onto a thick layer of atmospheric gas. These planets typically develop far from a star where conditions are more favourable to this kind of formation, just like the gas giants in our solar system.
But this exoplanet does not follow the same pattern, appearing to lack a dense core, and orbiting at a distance similar to that of Venus around the sun. Further analysis and observations may unlock some answers about it, with researchers analysing JWST data from another planet in the same system, to determine whether it is an outlier among “super-puff” planets or not.
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