Scientists are currently tracking a large gaseous planet that resembles a cotton candy and is facing an unprecedented predicament due to its extremely close orbit around a young, beast-like violently active star. The future fate of this planet has sparked significant attention.
According to reports from Reuters, this extrasolar planet, tightly orbiting its star, seems to trigger intense flares on the surface of the star. These flares extend into millions of miles in space, potentially stripping a considerable portion of the unfortunate planet’s atmosphere over time.
Researchers suggest that this phenomenon appears to be caused by the interaction between the planet and the star’s magnetic fields.
The star is named HIP 67522, slightly larger in mass than the Sun, located approximately 407 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Centaurus. The surrounding extrasolar planet is called HIP 67522 b, with a diameter almost equal to the largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter, but only 5% of Jupiter’s mass. This makes it one of the lightest known extrasolar planets, easily reminiscent of cotton candy.
HIP 67522 b is exceptionally close to its star, about one-fifth of the distance between Mercury, the innermost planet in our solar system, and the Sun. It completes one orbit in just seven days around HIP 67522.
The study was published in the journal “Nature”. Ekaterina Ilin, an astrophysicist at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy and the lead author of the research report, describes the young star HIP 67522 as a raging beast, especially when a planet is situated so closely to it.
Both HIP 67522 and HIP 67522 b, along with the second smaller gas planet detected in this planetary system, can be considered infants. While the Sun and the planets in our solar system have a history of approximately 4.5 billion years, HIP 67522 is only about 17 million years old, making its planets even younger.
So, how does HIP 67522 b trigger flares on the surface of the star HIP 67522?
“We still cannot ascertain the specific mechanism. A reasonable explanation is that as the planet moves within the star’s magnetic field, it generates waves propagating along the magnetic field lines to the star. When these waves reach the star’s corona, they trigger flares in the vast magnetic field loops storing energy,” Ilin explains.
She further elaborates that the planet’s movement within the star’s magnetic field causes disturbances similar to ripples left by a boat on a lake. These disturbances trigger flares upon impact with the star, representing a completely novel phenomenon never before observed, especially under such intensity.
Flares may heat up and expand the atmosphere of the planet HIP 67522 b. Currently, its atmosphere is mainly composed of hydrogen and helium. The impact of flares may blow away lighter elements from the atmosphere, leading to a reduction in mass over hundreds of millions of years.
“At that point, it will lose most (if not all) of the lighter elements, becoming what we call a ‘sub-Neptune’ – a gaseous planet smaller than Neptune,” says Ilin.
Researchers utilized observational data from two space telescopes: NASA’s TESS and the European Space Agency’s CHEOPS.