Unfortunate planets and startling actions of the brightest stars in the night sky unveiled by American scientists.
As reported by SciTech Daily, over the past 25 years of the quest for exoplanets, scientists have made a myriad of discoveries, with over 99% being planets orbiting stars ranging from small to medium in size.
The brightest stars in the night sky, such as the massive blue A-type stars like Sirius or Vega, were expected to host giant gas planets but appear to be surrounded by relatively empty regions.
A group of scientists from the University of California in Berkeley, USA, embarked on a mission to find answers, and what they uncovered was truly astonishing. They identified a planet belonging to the rare 1% that orbits a hot giant star. This planet is named HD 56414 b, and it’s roughly the size of Neptune.
HD 56414 b and its “monster” parent star – (Image: UC BERKELEY)
This planet orbits at a considerable distance from its parent star and seems to exist for only a short period of time. This observation reveals the peculiar behavior of its parent star: “devouring” its own gas planets.
In reality, these planets don’t completely vanish; they are reduced to a small rocky core that cannot be detected through astronomical observations. A-type stars emit extremely intense radiation, thus “stripping” the atmospheres of any nearby planets.
For gas giant planets, the atmosphere primarily constitutes their spherical mass, with the rocky core typically being very small. Consequently, a gas giant planet that has been “stripped” becomes incredibly small and dark.
In contrast to planets orbiting F, G, K, and M-type stars, which often receive a substantial amount of X-rays and ultraviolet radiation, planets orbiting A-type stars are subjected to more intense near-ultraviolet radiation and suffer more severe destruction. Our Sun is a G-type star, and Earth is fortunate in this regard.
This research was recently published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.