Solve Puffy Planet Mystery:

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by paddoboy, Nov 28, 2017.

  1. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    https://phys.org/news/2017-11-newly-twin-planets-puffy-planet.html

    Newly discovered twin planets could solve puffy planet mystery
    November 27, 2017

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    A Planet Inflated By Its Host Star. Upper left: Schematic of the K2-132 system on the main sequence. Lower left: Schematic of the K2-132 system now. The host star has become redder and larger, irradiating the planet more and thus causing it to expand. Sizes not to scale. Main panel: Gas giant planet K2-132b expands as its host star evolves into a red giant. The energy from the host star is transferred from the planet's surface to its deep interior, causing turbulence and deep mixing in the planetary atmosphere. The planet orbits its star every 9 days and is located about 2000 light years away from us in the constellation Virgo. Credit: Karen Teramura, UH IfA
    Since astronomers first measured the size of an extrasolar planet seventeen years ago, they have struggled to answer the question: how did the largest planets get to be so large? Thanks to the recent discovery of twin planets by a University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy team lead by graduate student Samuel Grunblatt, we are getting closer to an answer.

    Gas giant planets are primarily made out of hydrogen and helium, and are at least 4 times the diameter of Earth. Gas giant planets that orbit scorchingly close to their host stars are known as "hot Jupiters". These planets have masses similar to Jupiter and Saturn, but tend to be much larger - some are puffed up to sizes even larger than the smallest stars.



    Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-11-newly-twin-planets-puffy-planet.html#jCp
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    the paper:

    http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/aa932d/meta

    Seeing Double with K2: Testing Re-inflation with Two Remarkably Similar Planets around Red Giant Branch Stars:

    Abstract

    Despite more than 20 years since the discovery of the first gas giant planet with an anomalously large radius, the mechanism for planet inflation remains unknown. Here, we report the discovery of K2-132b, an inflated gas giant planet found with the NASA K2Mission, and a revised mass for another inflated planet, K2-97b. These planets orbit on ≈9 day orbits around host stars that recently evolved into red giants. We constrain the irradiation history of these planets using models constrained by asteroseismology and Keck/High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer spectroscopy and radial velocity measurements. We measure planet radii of 1.31 ± 0.11 R J and 1.30 ± 0.07 R J, respectively. These radii are typical for planets receiving the current irradiation, but not the former, zero age main-sequence irradiation of these planets. This suggests that the current sizes of these planets are directly correlated to their current irradiation. Our precise constraints of the masses and radii of the stars and planets in these systems allow us to constrain the planetary heating efficiency of both systems as

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    . These results are consistent with a planet re-inflation scenario, but suggest that the efficiency of planet re-inflation may be lower than previously theorized. Finally, we discuss the agreement within 10% of the stellar masses and radii, and the planet masses, radii, and orbital periods of both systems, and speculate that this may be due to selection bias in searching for planets around evolved stars.

     

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