Exoplanet poses a mystery: It shouldn't really exist like that

An international research team recently created one Exoplanets discovered, the origin of which is a mystery. It is about the size of Neptune but 4 times as massive. Its atmosphere is thin and makes an estimate at most 1 percent its mass.

Planets the size of Neptune can, in principle, be very diverse. This diversity ranges from icy worlds with thick atmospheres hydrogen and helium to very dense planets made up of enormous amounts of water or almost entirely rock.

Hot Neptune-like planet

In a new study that im Journal Nature was published, the researchers have the star TOI 1853 bwith about 80 percent the sun ace analyzed. The object was created using theTransiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite identified. It is round 544 light years away from the earth.

An exoplanet was also discovered that contains the star in1.24 days orbited.So it is very close to the parent star. This ensures temperatures of up to 1,200 degrees Celsius on the planet.

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The diameter of the planet is about 3,46 Mal larger than that of Earth and almost as large as Neptune. The researchers estimate that its mass 73 Mal is as large as that of Earth and 4 times as large as that of Neptune. Rather, the mass corresponds to that of Saturn.

Compact density surprising

In general, TOI 1853 b is the densest Neptune-like planet ever discovered. That Neptune-sized planets can be so compact is surprising. Although there are planets with similar densities, they are usually smaller. There are also celestial bodies with similar masses, but they are almost all twice as large.

Generally, objects that orbit their stars so closely are mostly either rocky planets less than twice Earth’s diameter, or so-called are called Jupiter. These are gas giants with a size of more than ten times the diameter of the earth.

Rock-water planet conceivable

How the planet came into being is not yet fully understood. The researchers suspect that it could possibly have been created by collisions between super-Earths. This would have removed some of the atmosphere and water, leaving mostly rock behind. But that would mean that the planet Brother has nearby. However, the researchers have not yet found this.

If no brother is found, the planet could also have had an oval orbit. This would have resulted in regular encounters with its star, causing the planet to lose much of its atmosphere and leave behind a dense core.

The team suspects that TOI 1853 b is half rock and half water. If so, its atmosphere could be rich in water vapor due to the heat. To find out more, further analyzes must be carried out.