![]() ![]() This exoplanet orbits around its star's poles, I periodically see reports on *misaligned* exoplanets. The strange orbit of this warm Jupiter could be the result of interactions with other planets in the planet's cosmic neighborhood, the team said in a paper accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and published in the preprint database arXiv." "Astronomers haven't yet determined the mass of TOI-1859 b, but they found that the planet's orbit is highly eccentric, or flattened, and misaligned in relation to its star. On the exoplanet WASP-76b, for example, this iron vapor is blown to the nightside of the planet by powerful winds, causing it to condense into droplets of iron that rain down onto the planet's surface. This exoplanet's proximity to its star likely gives it a warmer surface temperature compared with our planet, making it a "warm Jupiter." This class of worlds is distinct from the most commonly found exoplanets, so-called hot Jupiters, which are closer to their parent stars and often orbit them in just a few Earth days or, in some cases, in less than a day.Īs the name suggests, the surface temperatures of warm Jupiters are dwarfed by those of hot Jupiters, which can reach a scorching 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit (725 degrees Celsius) - hot enough to vaporize iron and give rise to extreme conditions. Whatever interaction left TOI-1859 b in its current orbital state also resulted in the planet coming to a distance of around 30 million miles (49 million km) from its host star - around one-third of the distance between Earth and the sun. (Image credit: Dong et al., 2023) Warm but not hot Brown dwarfs are often described as "failed stars" because they are more massive than gas giants but too small to trigger the nuclear fusion processes that define stars, and their discovery gives astronomers a better understanding of the dividing mass line between stars and planets.ĭrops in a star's light output revealed that a warm Jupiter planet was crossing the star's face. The team theorized that, alternatively, the planet's orbit might have been caused by an encounter with a "brown dwarf" in the system. This migration is caused by gravitational interactions between these planets, which can also leave the gas giants that remain close to their stars with misaligned and eccentric orbits like that of TOI-1859 b. The characteristics of the orbit are consistent with the theory that multiple gas giants form around stars that are rich in "metals," meaning elements heavier than hydrogen or helium, and then migrate to outer regions of their planetary systems. The strange orbit of this warm Jupiter could be the result of interactions with other planets in the planet's cosmic neighborhood, the team said in a paper accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and published in the preprint database arXiv. Astronomers haven't yet determined the mass of TOI-1859 b, but they found that the planet's orbit is highly eccentric, or flattened, and misaligned in relation to its star. ![]()
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