Scientists have confirmed the existence of an “extraordinary” hot Jupiter-type planet, which may help explain how the gas giant planets of our solar system formed.
The planet Kepler-1704b can also explain how certain planets eventually orbit their host star in a non-circular manner.
Researchers refer to Kepler-1704b as the “failed hot Jupiter” and it orbits its host star Kepler-1704 every 989 days or so. It is about 2,690 light-years from the earth.
The mass of this planet is about 4.15 times that of Jupiter, but the radius is similar.
Hot Jupiter planets are nothing new.They have been discovered before, orbit close to their host star, and sometimes exhibit Extremely harsh environment.
But what interests the researchers is how Kepler-1704b orbits its star.
Although many planets orbit their stars in rough circles, other planets orbit their planets in ellipses. The shape of the planet’s orbit is called the eccentricity, and the unit is e.
An eccentricity of 0 is a perfect circular orbit, and an eccentricity of 1 means that the orbit is no longer circular, or even not at all—the object will pass its star and fly into space, never returning.
For example, the orbital eccentricity of the earth is 0.017, so it is very close to a circle. Kepler-1704b has an eccentricity of 0.92, which means that it is very close to its star at some points in its orbit and very far away at other points.
Researchers believe that Kepler-1704b is sometimes close to 14,873,000 miles from its host star-many times closer than the distance between Earth and the sun. But at the farthest point, this gas giant planet can reach 362.5 million miles.
The research team’s research results have been submitted On preprinted paper, Published on July 16, and will be published in Astronomy MagazineThe research was led by planetary scientist Paul A. Dalba. University of California riverside.
Kepler-1704b was thought to exist before that, because scientists discovered that its star was temporarily dimmed—a sign that a planet was passing in front of it.
“However, there are many false positives in transit signals, especially signals from air-conditioned giant planets like this one,” said Dalba Weekly newspaper.
“So, Kepler-1704 b is stuck in the’candidate planet’ stage. Now, after nearly ten years of follow-up data collection, my colleagues and I have finally been able to confirm that it is a real exoplanet with an unusually eccentric orbit. “
In this study, the research team stated that giant exoplanets with eccentric orbits are “valuable laboratories” for testing theories about how planets migrate to such orbits.
The study stated: “Kepler-1704b is an extraordinary system because of its high eccentricity and transition geometry.
“Continued characterization of the Kepler-1704 system is expected to perfect theories explaining the formation of hot Jupiters and similar cold giant planets in the solar system.”
So far, Kepler-1704b and its host star have been called KOI-375.01 and KOI-375, respectively.
The existence of Kepler-1704b was confirmed as part of the Mass Survey of Giant Transiting Exoplanets (GOT’EM).
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