A planet that is too large in relation to its sun

The universe seems increasingly strange, more extreme and more bizarre to us. It should not attract our attention, considering that 90% of it consists of energy and dark matter, which we can only analyze through its interaction with other forces and celestial bodies. Now a new discovery adds even more unknowns: they’ve discovered a planet that’s too massive for its sun, which is a strange thing It calls into question what was previously known About the formation of the planets and their solar systems.

in a study Published in Sciencea team of scientists led by Suvrath Mahadevan describes the discovery of a planet 13 times more massive than Earth (nothing exotic yet) orbiting the “excessively cool” star LHS 3154. The problem, so to speak, is ultra-cool dwarf stars (the most famous of which is Trappist-1 ) usually About ten times less massive than our Sun. This makes the ratio between the mass of the discovered planet and the mass of LHS 3154, More than 100 times larger than the Earth and the Sun.

In this way, this discovery made it possible to discover the most massive planet to date in a close orbit around an ultracool dwarf. The lowest mass and coldest stars in the universe. This discovery goes against everything current theories predict about planet formation around small stars, and represents the first time a planet this high has been discovered orbiting a low-mass star.

“This is really a discovery It shows how little we know about the universe – explains Suvrath Mahadevan, study leader, V.I a permit -. “We did not expect such a heavy planet to exist around a low-mass star.”

Mahadevan’s team discovered the planet, called LHS 3154b, using an astronomical spectrometer, built in Pennsylvania, designed to detect planets orbiting cool stars outside our solar system that have… Possibility of obtaining liquid wateran essential element of life.

Although these planets They are very difficult to detect around stars like our planetFor, the low temperature of ultracool stars means that planets capable of having liquid water on their surfaces are much closer to their star than Earth and the Sun, and this small distance, combined with the low mass of ultracool stars, makes for a detectable discovery. The authors explain the signal that announces the planet’s presence.

“You have to think of a star as if it were a fire,” adds Mahadevan. “The cooler the fire gets, the closer you have to it to stay warm. The same goes for planets. If a star is cooler, the planet will need to be closer to that star.” Until it becomes so Hot enough to contain liquid water. If a planet is orbiting close to its ultracool star, we can detect it by seeing a very slight change in the color of the star’s spectrum or light as it is pulled by an orbiting planet. “What we discovered provides a real test of all existing theories about planetary formation.”