Some astronomical theories suggest that a planet of its mass would have to form farther out and slowly migrate inward over hundreds of millions of years, but the star is too young for a process that long to have occurred, the researchers said in the statement. The planet, K2-33b, at 5 to 10 million years old, is still in its infancy.
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“We would really like to know if this planet formed at its present location or perhaps formed much farther from the star and moved much closer in. We are saying, at least in this one case, that they can indeed be there at a very early stage”, he said.
“These two papers are probably the first solid evidence that you can find planets close to their stars at such a young age”, said Trevor David from the California Institute of Technology, co-author of one of the studies.
The planets, just a few million years old, are among the youngest ever to be discovered.
The other exoplanet is a giant Jupiter-like orb circling a 2-million-year-old star like our sun. The planet, discovered using three ground-based telescopes, circles it in just 4.9 days. K2-33 b could have formed on a farther out orbit and quickly migrated inward.
“It’s an astounding snapshot of a planet under 10 million years old”, said Swinburne University astrophysicist Alan Duffy. Finding an exoplanet this young is pretty rare, and astronomers hope it can teach us more about planetary formation.
According to co-author of the study, Erik Petigura of Caltech, this is truly a remarkable discovery in exoplanetary science, as this newborn planet can greatly help in the understanding of how planets form, which can lead to more clues about understanding the origins of life and how Earth formed. It’s about 6 billion years old and the correct distance from its star for liquid water.
Infrared measurements from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope showed that the system’s star is surrounded by a thin disk of planetary debris, indicating that its planet-formation phase is wrapping up.
Ames manages the Kepler and K2 missions for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.
Astronomers have discovered what they believe is the youngest ever found… The planet host star emitted a periodic dimming of the light which was detected by the telescope. “K2-33b provides some of the best direct proof of this theory”. It’s around six times bigger than Earth, or about 50 percent bigger than Neptune, and it’s about the same as Neptune in terms of mass. It orbits its star very quickly, making a full revolution once every 5 days. It is nearly 10 times closer to the star than Mercury is to our Sun.
This image shows the K2-33 system, and its planet K2-33b, compared to our own solar system. The problem is it’s hard to directly “see” exoplanets – planets outside our solar system.
It is an indication that something very large is orbiting around the star. The existence of K2-33b demonstrates that some close-in planets achieve their final orbital distances early on.
K2-33b is the youngest exoplanet from the Kepler mission, but it’s just one in a long list of extraordinary worlds discovered.
Data from the Keck Observatory confirmed that the dimming was certainly caused by a planet, and also helped prove its young age.
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K2-33b is fully formed, but it may still evolve over time. Today, more than 3200 such systems have been catalogued, ranging from giant planets larger than Jupiter but hotter than Mercury to frozen worlds orbiting moribund stars.
