Neptune

Current theories about the formation of planets do not apply to TOI-332b. It is denser than iron and orbits its star at breakneck speed at improbably close proximity.

Out of the seemingly infinite number of planets in the universe, humanity knows only about 5 thousand of them – beyond the planets of the Solar System. Nevertheless, astronomers and the entire scientific community continue to be fascinated by the fact that, even in such a small number, there are many interesting planets that stand out from the crowd in terms of their properties.

One of them is the planet TOI-332b, which is located 727 light-years from Earth and has attracted the attention of scientists for several reasons. One of them is the speed of the orbit around its star, others are the fact that a planet similar to Neptune has never been observed so close to the star, and last but not least, scientists are irritated by the enormous density combined with the almost non-existent atmosphere.

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Some properties of exoplanets, such as radius or distance from their star, are quite common. However, some are much rarer, such as TOI-332b. Finding out why humanity has discovered so many of some recurring types of worlds and so few of those that don’t fit the charts could provide clues to how planetary systems form and evolve.

New work from our Ares Osborn @aresosborn has explored the properties of @NASA_TESS TOI-332b: a superdense Neptune found deep in the Neptune Desert.
See for details! pic.twitter.com/NSyskmim9y

— Warwick Astro Group (@WarwickAstro) August 29, 2023

One of the areas worthy of further investigation is the so-called Neptunian desert. It is a region near a star that is exposed to so much radiation that planets like Neptune lose their atmosphere and become nothing more than a piece of rock flying through space. In other words, they shouldn’t be in this area at all, but exceptions prove the rule, and we already know a few such planets.

However, TOI-332b is unique for the reasons mentioned above that have scientists shaking their heads. Its radius is 3.2 times that of Earth, and just for comparison, Neptune has a radius almost four times that of our planet. Also fascinating, TOI-332b is so close to its star that it completes its orbit in less than 19 Earth hours, while the Earth orbits the Sun in one year.

These properties alone therefore make the newly discovered exoplanet a very interesting object, but the fascinating numbers do not end there. Gravitational action on its host star enabled a team of scientists around astrophysicist Ares Osborne from the University of Warwick measure weight TOI-332b, which is almost 60 times the mass of Earth, while Neptune is only 17 times heavier.

This also means that TOI-332b has an incredible mass density of 9.6 grams per cubic centimeter, compared to 1.64 grams for Neptune and 5.51 grams for Earth. So one could say that TOI-332b is denser than iron on average. Because of this, we know that the planet has a dense iron core with a rocky mantle and a very thin atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. The problem, however, is that for a core the size of the one assumed for TOI-332b, however, according to earlier discoveries, a large, dense and very widespread atmosphere is expected, such as on Jupiter. All this does not fit together for scientists and they ask, where did the atmosphere of the exoplanet actually go? There is, of course, photoevaporation – that is, when extreme radiation from a star causes evaporation and the escape of the atmosphere.

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But this process, according to Osborne, cannot explain the loss of atmosphere of this magnitude. Other processes include planetary migration, in which the atmosphere would be eroded as the exoplanet moves from a greater distance toward its host star. But it is also possible that most of the atmosphere was destroyed by a giant collision with another planetary object, or that TOI-332b simply never had any atmosphere. But even that is a reflection of science and scientific knowledge, into which something unexpected and at least for now inexplicable can enter.

Source: Science Alert, ArXiv

2023-10-02 04:00:00
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