Astronomers Just Found a Planet They Didn’t Know Was Possible – Futurism

In Brief Astronomers have discovered an exoplanet that defies previously established trends. Although a hot Neptune, the exoplanet HAT-P-26b has an atmospheric composition that's more Jupiter-like, giving clues as to how it was formed. Warm and Unusual

The easiest way to make sense of the various unfamiliar objects we find floating around in the cosmos is by thinking about them in the context ofcelestial bodies we are familiar with. Our Solar System has become the starting point for our analysis of other bodies, especially exoplanets.

Thats how the termhot Neptunecame about its our way of describing exoplanets as massive as Uranus or Neptune but that orbit closer to their stars. Weve already come across a number of these hot Neptunes, but one of the most recently discovered defies all expectations astronomers have about the exoplanets.

Located about 437 light-years away from Earth, HAT-P-26b is a hot Neptune that has a primordial atmosphere composed mostly of hydrogen and helium an unusual mixture for planets very close to their stars. Astronomers have just begun to investigate the atmospheres of these distant Neptune-mass planets, and almost right away, we found an example that goes against the trend in our Solar System, said researcher Hannah Wakefordfrom NASAs Goddard Space Flight Centerin a news release.

Usually, massive planets have lower metallicities a lower presence of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium in their atmosphere. For example, Jupiter and Saturns are five and ten times than that of the Sun, respectively. Smaller planets like Uranus and Neptune, on the other hand, have higher metallicities, about a hundred times greater than the Sun.

For hot Neptune HAT-P-26b, however, this standard fails. Its metallicity is only about 4.8 times that of the Sun much closer to Jupiters than to Neptunes.

Such a discovery just confirms that theres so much we dont know about the universe and whats in it. Assumptions that may be true for Earth or for the planets in our solar system may not necessarily be true for others out there. This analysis shows that there is a lot more diversity in the atmospheres of these exoplanets than we were expecting, which is providing insight into how planets can form and evolve differently than in our solar system, said University of Exeters David K. Sing, second author of the paper, which is published in Nature.

For Wakeford, its discoveries like this that make her work exciting. This kind of unexpected result is why I really love exploring the atmospheres of alien planets, she said.

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Astronomers Just Found a Planet They Didn't Know Was Possible - Futurism