Astronomy, Stellar, Planetary News
EXO WORLDS
Discovery Alert: a 'Hot Neptune' in a Tight Orbit
illustration only
Reuters Events SMR and Advanced Reactor 2025
Discovery Alert: a 'Hot Neptune' in a Tight Orbit
by Grace Jacobs Corban
Pasadena CA (SPX) Nov 27, 2024

A Neptune-sized planet, TOI-3261 b, makes a scorchingly close orbit around its host star. Only the fourth object of its kind ever found, the planet could reveal clues as to how planets such as these form.

An international team of scientists used the NASA space telescope, TESS (the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), to discover the exoplanet (a planet outside our solar system), then made further observations with ground-based telescopes in Australia, Chile, and South Africa. The measurements placed the new planet squarely in the "hot Neptune desert" - a category of planets with so few members that their scarcity evokes a deserted landscape.

This variety of exoplanet is similar to our own Neptune in size and composition, but orbits extremely closely to its star. In this case, a "year" on TOI-3261 b is only 21 hours long. Such a tight orbit earns this planet its place in an exclusive group with, so far, only three other members: ultra-short-period hot Neptunes whose masses have been precisely measured.

Planet TOI-3261 b proves to be an ideal candidate to test new computer models of planet formation. Part of the reason hot Neptunes are so rare is that it is difficult to retain a thick gaseous atmosphere so close to a star.

Stars are massive, and so exert a large gravitational force on the things around them, which can strip the layers of gas surrounding a nearby planet. They also emit huge amounts of energy, which blow the gas layers away. Both of these factors mean that hot Neptunes such as TOI-3261 b might have started out as much larger, Jupiter-sized planets, and have since lost a large portion of their mass.

By modeling different starting points and development scenarios, the science team determined that the star and planet system is about 6.5 billion years old, and that the planet started out as a much larger gas giant.

It likely lost mass, however, in two ways: photoevaporation, when energy from the star causes gas particles to dissipate, and tidal stripping, when the gravitational force from the star strips layers of gas from the planet. The planet also might have formed farther away from its star, where both of these effects would be less intense, allowing it to retain its atmosphere.

The remaining atmosphere of the planet, one of its most interesting features, will likely invite further atmospheric analysis, perhaps helping to unravel the formation history of this denizen of the "hot Neptune desert." Planet TOI-3261 b is about twice as dense as Neptune, indicating that the lighter parts of its atmosphere have been stripped away over time, leaving only the heavier components.

This shows that the planet must have started out with a variety of different elements in its atmosphere, but at this stage, it is hard to tell exactly what. This mystery could be solved by observing the planet in infrared light, perhaps using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope - an ideal way to see the identifying fingerprints of the different molecules in the planet's atmosphere. This will not just help astronomers understand the past of TOI-3261 b, but also begin to uncover the physical processes behind all hot, giant planets.

Research Report:Surviving in the Hot-Neptune Desert: The Discovery of the Ultrahot Neptune TOI-3261b

Related Links
Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)
Lands Beyond Beyond - extra solar planets - news and science
Life Beyond Earth

Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters
Tweet

RELATED CONTENT
The following news reports may link to other Space Media Network websites.
EXO WORLDS
Final data and undiscovered images from NASA's NEOWISE
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Nov 27, 2024
While NASA's NEOWISE telescope ended its journey through space on Nov. 1, 2024, the team at IPAC, a science center at Caltech, was working on one further gift from the prolific mission. The final data release from NEOWISE was released to the astronomy community just two weeks later, on Nov. 14, encompassing over 26 million images and nearly 200 billion sources detected by the telescope. NEOWISE was launched as the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) in 2009 and then reactivated in 201 ... read more

EXO WORLDS
Uranus moons could hold clues to hidden oceans for future space missions

A clue to what lies beneath the bland surfaces of Uranus and Neptune

Magnetic tornado is stirring up the haze at Jupiter's poles

Europa Clipper deploys instruments on journey to icy moon of Jupiter

EXO WORLDS
EXO WORLDS
Final data and undiscovered images from NASA's NEOWISE

Team identifies how interstellar medium impacts pulsar signals

Discovery Alert: a 'Hot Neptune' in a Tight Orbit

Young transiting planet reshapes theories of planetary formation

EXO WORLDS
Scientists map complete energy spectrum of solar high-energy protons near Mars

Ancient water on Mars suggests potential for past life

Making Mars' Moons: Supercomputers Offer 'Disruptive' New Explanation

Have We Been Searching for Life on Mars in the Wrong Way

EXO WORLDS
KSAT teams with Starsite to establish lunar support site in Western Australia

Firefly Aerospace prepares Blue Ghost Lunar mission for launch

China details plans for manned lunar landing by 2030

Atomic-6 partners with Starpath Robotics for Lunar Power Tower development

EXO WORLDS
China FAST telescope discovers over 1000 pulsars

Astronomers identify potential source of mysterious stellar signals

XRISM mission looks deeply into 'hidden' stellar system

All-optical nonlinear Compton scattering achieved with multi-petawatt laser producing ultra-bright gamma rays

EXO WORLDS
New framework improves remote sensing image fusion through frequency-based learning

Commercial Earth Observation to exceed $8 billion by 2033

SatVu receives major funding to advance thermal imaging capabilities

New AI tool generates realistic satellite images of future flooding

EXO WORLDS
From space to atmosphere scientists unravel secrets of asteroid 2022 WJ1

Earthbound asteroids may be tracked more precisely using new equation

As the Taurid meteor shower passes by Earth, pseudoscience rains down - and obscures a potential real threat from space

Ion dynamics examined as comet 67P awakens from dormancy

Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us.