Scientists unravel how planet escaped death – 06/29/2023 – Science

Scientists believe they have unraveled the mystery of a planet that would be destroyed, but survived.

Named 8 Ursae Minoris b, the planet lies around the star 8 Ursae Minoris, 530 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Ursa Minor.

The planet was identified in 2015, but it shouldn’t even exist – it should have been engulfed by the star, which is dying. Before dying, stars grow and swallow everything around. Then they shrink and their brightness decreases – today the brightness of the star 8 Ursae Minoris is too faint to be seen with the naked eye from Earth.

Researchers now believe that 8 Ursae Minoris b survived because the dying star had a companion that stopped its growth. (Understand below)

“No planetary system like this has been discovered before. This is the first, which is very special,” explains astrophysicist Dimitri Veras of the University of Warwick, who worked on research into the star’s survival.

Published in the scientific journal Nature, the study was led by Marc Hon, from the University of Hawaii, in the United States.

OUR FUTURE

Scientists explain their theories by talking about the fate of our own solar system.

Earth and the other planets in our solar system orbit the Sun, a “yellow dwarf” star. Yellow dwarfs are stars that convert hydrogen into helium in their core through nuclear fusion.

However, at one point in their lives, yellow dwarfs heat up so much that they transform into so-called “red giants,” stars that expand significantly, engulfing everything around them. After that, your core starts to shrink.

When that happens to the Sun, it will consume Mercury, Venus and probably the Earth.

This destruction by an expanding star is exactly what should have happened to planet 8 Ursae Minoris b.

But another star – a “second sun” – appears to have saved the planet, explains Marc Hon, who made the observations using the TESS space telescope.

‘SECOND SUN’

Scientists believe that the planet once orbited two stars – that is, at some point it had two ‘suns’.

The researchers’ theory is that the stars were in different stages of life. One of them was a red giant. The other was a star in its next stage, a white dwarf.

The researchers believe that the red giant’s expansion process was stopped when it swallowed its companion star, allowing the planet to survive.

“The idea for a binary star merger came from effectively putting together a jigsaw puzzle,” explains Hon.

After making the observations, Hon worked with theorist Dimitri Veras and a group of about 40 scientists to come up with possible explanations for the planet’s survival.

Another theory advanced by scientists is that the planet was formed by material violently ejected by the merger of the two stars. But they say this is a much more speculative idea.

“Most stars are in binary systems, but we still don’t fully understand how planets can form around them. It’s plausible that many peculiar planetary systems could exist due to the influence of binary stars,” explains Hon.

This text was originally published here.