Astronomers have spotted an exoplanet that is decaying around a star. The stricken world is destined to spiral closer and closer to its star until it explodes.
The first look at a system at this late stage of evolution is offered by the discovery.
Death-by-star could be the Earth's ultimate adios billions of years from now, as our Sun grows older.
We have previously detected evidence for exoplanets inspiraling toward their stars, but we have never before seen such a planet around an evolved star. According to theory, evolved stars are very effective at draining energy from their planets.
The results were published in a journal.
The exoplanet is named Kepler 1658b. The exoplanet was discovered with the Kepler space telescope, a pioneer in planet-hunting. The world was the first exoplanet to be observed. It took nearly a decade to confirm the planet's existence, at which time it entered the catalog as the 1658th entry.
It's called a hot Jupiter because it's similar to Jupiter's mass and size but in close proximity to its host star. It's only an eighth of the space between our Sun and Mercury. For hot Jupiters and other planets that are very close to their stars, orbital decay is likely to end in destruction.
The process of measuring the orbital decay of exoplanets has been challenging. According to the new study, the planet's orbital period is decreasing at a minuscule rate of 131 milliseconds per year, which indicates it has moved closer to its star.
It took a long time to detect the decline. The watch was picked up by the Hale Telescope in Southern California after the launch of the TESS telescope. The term for when an exoplanet crosses the face of a star is transits. The interval between the transits has decreased over the past 13 years.
Tides are the same phenomenon that causes the rise and fall of the oceans. Tides are created by interactions between two bodies, such as between our world and the moon or the star. Energy is released when the bodies respond to the gravities of each other. In the case of the Earth and the slowly outward-spiraling Moon, the bodies pushing each other away can be caused by the different distances between them.
Many researchers don't understand the dynamics of star-planet scenarios. Further study of the system should be of interest.
The star has evolved to the point in its stellar life cycle where it has started to expand, just as our Sun is expected to. The internal structure of evolved stars should make it easier to get rid of the tidal energy taken from host planets. It's easier to study on human timescales with this speed.
The results help explain the strange appearance of Kepler-1658b. The team says that the planet may be getting more energy from the tidal interactions.
Io is the most volcanic body in the Solar System. Jupiter pushes and pulls on Io. There are yellow sulfurous deposits and fresh red lava on the moon.
More light should be shed on the interactions between the planets. Vissapragada and colleagues expect TESS to uncover many other instances of exoplanets circling down the drain of their host stars.
"Now that we have evidence of inspiraling of a planet around an evolved star, we can begin to refine our models of tidal physics," Vissapragada says. With any luck, there will be many more of these labs with the help of the Kepler-1658 system.
Vissapragada joined the Center for Astrophysics a few months ago and is now being taught by Mercedes Lpez-Morales.
Lpez-Morales is an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics and he says that Shreyas has been a good addition to the team.
Vissapragada is looking forward to seeing what all of us discover together.
The Astrophysical Journal Letters contains more information about the possible tidal demise of the first planetary system. There is a book titled "10847/2041-8213/aca47e".
Journal information: Astrophysical Journal Letters
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