The Conversation contributed the article to Space.com's expert voices.
The PhD candidate is from the University of SouthernQueensland and the professor is from the University of SouthernQueensland.
Imagine a system of planets around a star, what do you see?
Such thoughts conjure up systems that are similar to the solar system, such as planets in close proximity of a star, and giants in the icy depths.
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We might be more of an exception than a rule if we study the universe more.
Imagine a system with one large planet skimming the surface of its host star on a fast path. It's hot and bright, and it bakes in the stars.
Imagine a giant planet that is larger than Jupiter, moving on a long and elliptical path, which makes it look like a comet.
It doesn't seem like home to me. We found what we were looking for.
Astronomers began observing stars like the sun in the 20th century. They were looking for evidence that the stars were wobbling under the influence of other planets.
Researchers discovered a planet in the vicinity of a star with the help of the Anglo-Australian Telescope. It was as big as the gas giants Jupiter andSaturn.
That's where the similarities came to an end. HD8343b is a giant gas planet that skims the surface of its host star in less than three Earth days.
Since its discovery, we have continued to keep a close eye on it. We've been doing this work at the University of SouthernQueensland's Mt. in the past. The observatory is open in a new tab.
We discovered a strange new planet in the system when we combined our observations with others.
This world takes more than two decades to get to its host star and is 200 times farther away than the other one. We needed more than two decades of observations to confirm the existence of HD8343c since it is so long.
It's really unusual that it's in a different part of the world. HD8343c follows a path similar to comets in our solar system.
Astronomers are interested in the "hot Jupiter" as it's unlike anything they've ever seen. Jupiter is far from its star where ices are plentiful.
They gain enough mass to shroud themselves in huge atmospheres.
It must have migrated inwards as it grew to maturity to be close to its star. Why did this happen?
Astronomers have found a lot of hot Jupiters. In trying to understand those weird planets, several mechanisms have been proposed, but in most cases, no evidence of the cause of the migration can be found.
The smoking gun may have been provided by our new discovery in the case of HD8343b. The sibling may have ended up on its current path because of the newly discovered world.
Imagine HD 833c and HD 833b forming in the depths of HD 833. They would have been buried in a huge disk of gas and dust around the star.
As the planets moved through the disc, they fed from it, growing even more massive, and drifting slowly inward as they interacted with the disc around them.
They ended up coming too close together. As they swung past one another, their huge pulls acted like a slingshot, catapulting them both onto a new path.
The hot Jupiter was flung inwards onto an elliptical path that skims the star's surface at its closest approach. The other planet is flung towards the sky.
Something extraordinary happened over the last thousand years. The host star caused tides to rise on it when HD8343b swung close to it. The brakes would have been applied to the motion.
Each time it flew past the star, it lost a small amount of speed. It didn't travel as far as before as it flew back out. It was dragged inside until it reached its current small, circular circle.
HD8333c did not experience a fate like that. It remained so far away from the central star that it didn't have to worry about its trajectory.
The system was young when the initial planetary encounter took place.
The main goal of our ongoing search for alien worlds is to find places that are closer to home.
We're using the same tools to find planetary systems like ours, with giant planets far from their hosts. We might need to look out at distance stars for a long time.
We will find many more surprising systems like HD8343 that will show us more about the true variety of planetary systems out there.
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