The University of Cambride discovers a solar system with four planets

A group of astronomers from the University of Cambride discovered that a two-million-year-old star had four giant gas planets around its orbit.

This discovery raised questions about the formation and evolution of the solar system.

This is the first time that one detects so many gigantic planets orbiting a young star. The research was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

A Young Solar System Surrounded by Dust and Ice

The star, known as CI Tau, is two million years old, which means it is still in the beginning. life cycle.

Like other young stars, it is surrounded by a vast ring of dust and ice, called a protoplanetary disk, in which planets, moons, asteroids, and other astronomical objects are formed.

500 light-years from Earth Astronomers have a special interest in the CI Tau, because it contains a gaseous planet with a mbad 10 times greater than that of Jupiter, they call it "Hot Jupiter".

These discoveries also confuse astronomers because, according to the models

To make this discovery, the researchers used the observatory ALMA (millimeter / submillimetric matrix of Atacama), a network of radio telescopes in the Chilean Andes, looking for other planets. 19659002] ALMA images revealed three distinct gaps in the protoplanetary debris disk surrounding the star that, according to the researchers, would probably have been caused by the gravitational effects of the planets as they gravitate around the young star.

The CI planets differ greatly in their orbits: the nearest (CI Tau b) is in the equivalent of the orbit of Mercury, while the farthest orbits are more than three times longer than that of Neptune.

The two outer planets have more or less the mbad of Saturn, while the inner two planets have up to 10 times the mbad of Jupiter, with very interesting information.