Laurence Malcom
A group of astronomers discovered new planet Outside our solar system, a celestial body revolves around it b centaur, the two-star system that can be observed with the naked eye.
The image of the planet was taken with the VLT (Very Large Telescope), of the European Southern Observatory (ESO, for its English acronym) located in the Atacama Desert, in Chile.
In a statement, ESO explained that b centaur It is located about 325 light-years away from
Earth
, has at least six times the mass of the Sun, making it “the largest system around which a planet has ever existed.”
The new planet It was captured orbiting at a distance 100 times greater than that of Jupiter orbiting the Sun, despite the fact that some astronomers believe that planets cannot exist around such huge, hot systems as b centaur.
The new planet formed in a highly radioactive environment
Markus Jansson, an astronomer at Stockholm University, Sweden, said the discovery completely changes the picture of massive stars as host planets.
Lead author of the study on new planet, published in the journal Nature, stated that most massive stars are very hot and that this system is no exception, because its main star is three times hotter than the Sun and emits large amounts of ultraviolet radiation.
Citing the statement, Jansson added that the hotter the star, the greater its output of high-energy radiation, which “should work against planet formation.”
B-type stars are generally considered to be very destructive and dangerous environments, so it is thought that it would be very difficult to form large planets around them.
However, the discovery new planet employment b centaur “It is a strange world”, because the environment in which it was formed is completely different from what happens on Earth and our world
Solar System
said Gayatri Viswanath, co-author of the study.
“It’s a hostile environment, dominated by intense radiation, where everything is on a gigantic scale, the stars, the planet and the distances are greater,” Viswanath added.
In case new planet, called b Centauri b, has a mass 10 times the mass of Jupiter, and moves around the solar system in one of the widest orbits yet discovered and at a distance 100 times greater than the distance between Jupiter and the sun.
Finally, the European Southern Observatory confirmed that its 3.6-meter ESO telescope took pictures of b Centauri b more than 20 years ago, but at the time it was not recognized as an new planet.
