[ad_1]
Astronomers say they discovered a dishonest exoplanet with its own atmosphere in the Neptunian desert. NGTS-4b, dubbed "the forbidden planet", is smaller than Neptune but three times larger than Earth, researchers at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom said. The exoplanet, described in the Avis journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, has a mbad of 20 land mbades, a radius 20% lower than that of Neptune and a temperature of 1000 degrees Celsius. It orbits around the star in just 1.3 days – the equivalent of the Earth 's orbit around the year – old sun.
This is the first exoplanet of this type to have been found in the Neptunian Desert, researchers said. The Neptunian Desert is the region near the stars where no planet of size Neptune has been found, they said.
This zone is strongly irradiated by the star, which means that the planets do not keep their gaseous atmosphere because they evaporate to form only a rocky core. However, NGTS-4b still has its gas atmosphere.
When they are looking for new planets, astronomers are looking for a plunge in the light of a star – the planet revolving around it and blocking light. Usually only drops of 1% or more are detected by ground searches.
However, NGTS telescopes, located in the Atacama Desert, Chile, can record a drop of only 0.2%. The researchers believe that the planet could have moved into the Neptunian desert recently, in the last million years, or that it was very large and that the atmosphere continues to be unplanned. # 39; evaporate.
"This planet has to be tough, it's right in the area where we expected planets the size of Neptune," said Richard West of the University of Warwick. "It is truly remarkable to find that we have found a planet in transition through a star decreasing by less than 0.2% – this has never been done before with ground-based telescopes, and it was awesome to find it after working on this project for a year, "West said.
"We are exploring data to see if we can see more planets in the Neptune Desert – maybe the desert is greener than we thought," he said. he declares.
Source link
