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An enormous planet orbiting a tiny star 31 light-years from Earth has confused astronomers – because it is not supposed to exist.
The gaseous world is two times smaller than Jupiter, but revolves around a star eight times smaller than our sun.
Planets of this size are extremely rare, especially around small stars.
The newly created world, nicknamed GJ 3512b, is so big that it could not have formed like most planets do, leaving the team of Swiss, Spanish and German scientists who discovered it by gratifying itself head.
The discovery could force astronomers to rethink how the planets were born, researchers said.
"Around such stars, there should be only Earth-sized planets or a little more massive super-lands," said Professor Christoph Mordasini, a scientist at the University of Bern.
"GJ 3512b, however, is a giant planet whose mass is about two times smaller than that of Jupiter. This is at least an order of magnitude more massive than the planets predicted by theoretical models for such small stars. "
Space scientists discovered the mysterious world with the help of a telescope at the Calar Alto observatory in southern Spain.
The GJ 3512b is a huge block of gas and dust that gravitates around its star every 204 days.
It is 31 light years from Earth, which means it is relatively close to space.
All in all, it's pretty banal until you compare it to its host, a small type of dark star called a red dwarf.
GJ 3512b is at least 46% as massive as Jupiter, but revolves around a star at 12% of the sun's mass.
For comparison, while our sun is about 1.050 times the mass of Jupiter, the GJ 3512 is only about 250 times the mass of GJ 3512b.
Planets form normally when dust and rocks bind together due to the gravitational pull of a star.
The wad becomes larger and larger until it is large enough to retain its own gas atmosphere.
But the simulations done by the team suggest that GJ 3512b could not have formed in this way.
His star is just too small to have the gravitational pull needed to train GJ 3512b.
The planet is probably born after a disk of dust and rocks gravitating around the dwarf star collapsed under its own gravity, scientists said.
This unusual form of planet formation, called gravitational instability, was found to be rare, but the discovery suggests that it is more common than we had imagined.
"It's the first time we clearly detect a planet where the only possible way to explain it is gravitational instability," said New University astronomer Juan Carlos Morales. Barcelona. Scientist.
The research was published in the journal Science.
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