Discover a new exoplanet orbiting a giant star, larger than the sun

Discover a new exoplanet orbiting a giant star, larger than the sun

A new explanation has been discovered by Scientists. is similar to Jupiterlocated 520 light-years from Earth and orbiting a giant star larger than the Sun, called Baekdu, located in the constellation Ursa Minor or “Little Bear”.

He may be an unlikely survivor after his host star has a “tantrum”. The gaseous planet is known as 8 UMi b and was named Halla because Korean astronomers paid tribute to a sacred site in South Korea, the country’s highest mountain.

The discovery comes as a surprise to astronomers who believed that this type of planet would not be able to survive due to strange properties and a tendency to explode.

The star is burning

Baekdu’s observations were made using the US Space Agency’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, which studies nearby stars.

The team’s observations revealed that the star is burning to supply helium in its core, where it appears to have depleted its hydrogen.

The revelation indicates to astronomers that the planet has expanded into a red giant star.

“Hot Jupiter”

Halla orbits Baekdu at about half the distance between Earth and the Sun at 68,815,020 kilometres.

Halla is considered “hot Jupiter”. This is a classification for exoplanets similar in size to Jupiter that have higher temperatures due to their proximity to their host stars.

Astronomers believe that Halla somehow survived after its star underwent a violent transition that was supposed to destroy nearby planets.

New exoplanet analysis

Dan Hooper, future member of the Australian Research Council at the University of Sydney and Associate Professor. At the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy at Mānoa, which is analyzing phenomena around the new planet, everything is a surprise.

“When we realized that Halla had managed to survive in the immediate vicinity of her giant star, it was a complete surprise,” he said.

In the case of Halla, initial observations revealed that the planet’s near-circular orbit, which takes 93 Earth days to complete, has remained stable for more than a decade.

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Astronomers continue to investigate planets that form around so-called double star systems — and the fate of those planets, too.

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By Chris Skeldon

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