Lehigh: 'Styrofoam' Planet May Help Solve Mystery of Giant Planets

[bystander]

'Styrofoam' Planet May Help Solve Mystery of Giant Planets
Lehigh University | 2017 May 18

[img3="An artist’s rendering of KELT-11b, a “Styrofoam-density” planet recently discovered by Lehigh astronomers that orbits a bright star in the Southern Hemisphere. (Credit: Walter Robinson/Lehigh University)"]https://www1.lehigh.edu/sites/default/f ... lanet1.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

Fifth-graders making Styrofoam models of the solar system may have the right idea. Lehigh researchers have discovered a new planet orbiting a star 320 light-years from Earth that has the density of Styrofoam. This “puffy planet” outside our solar system may help solve the long-standing mystery of the existence of a population of highly inflated giant planets.

“It is highly inflated, so that while it’s only a fifth as massive as Jupiter, it is nearly 40 percent larger, making it about as dense as Styrofoam, with an extraordinarily thick atmosphere,” said Joshua Pepper ...

The planet, called KELT-11b, is an extreme version of a gas planet, like Jupiter or Saturn, but is orbiting very close to its host star in an orbit that lasts less than five days. The star, KELT-11, has started using up its nuclear fuel and is evolving into a red giant, so the planet will be engulfed by its star and will not survive the next hundred million years.

While inflated giant planets have been known for more than 15 years, their existence still eludes a clear explanation. The extreme nature of the KELT-11b system makes it unique and may help researchers to solve this puzzle, Pepper said. The planet’s host star is extremely bright, allowing precise measurement of the planet’s atmospheric properties and making it “an excellent system for measuring the atmospheres of other planets,” Pepper said. ...

KELT-11b: A Highly Inflated Sub-Saturn Exoplanet Transiting the V=8 Subgiant HD 93396 - Joshua Pepper et al

• Astronomical Journal 153(5):215 (2017 May) DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/aa6572
  arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1607.01755 > 06 Jul 2016

[neufer]

<<In 2015, researchers discovered that mealworms, the larvae form of the darkling beetle Tenebrio molitor, could digest and subsist healthily on a diet of Styrofoam. About 100 mealworms could consume between 34 and 39 milligrams of Styrofoam in a day. The droppings of mealworm were found to be safe for use as soil for crops. Superworms (Zophobas morio) are also reported to eat styrofoam.>>

• And so it begins:

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<<Sandworms — called Shai-Hulud (meaning "a thing of eternity") among the Fremen of the desert planet Arrakis (Dune) — are worshipped as manifestations of "the earth deity of Fremen hearth superstitions". The Fremen believe that the actions of the sandworms are the direct actions of God, and so the worms have been given numerous titles such as the "Great Maker", "The Maker", and the "Worm who is God" (God Emperor of Dune). Virtually indestructible and with indefinite lifespans of potentially thousands of years, the giant sandworms are also referred to as the "Old Man of the Desert", "Old Father Eternity" and "Grandfather of the Desert". Then he heard the sand rumbling. Every Fremen knew the sound, could distinguish it immediately from the noises of worms or other desert life. Somewhere beneath him, the pre-spice mass had accumulated enough water and organic matter from the little makers, had reached the critical stage of wild growth. A gigantic bubble of carbon dioxide was forming deep in the sand, heaving upward in an enormous "blow" with a dust whirlpool at its center. It would exchange what had been formed deep in the sand for whatever lay on the surface.>>