Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics | 2020 Mar 09
Scientists at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian have, for the first time, measured the orbital tilt of an exoplanet younger than 45 million years. While observing DS Tuc Ab—a recently discovered, young, Neptune-sized planet with an orbital period of eight days—scientists developed new modeling techniques to take stellar obliquity measurements and demographic information about the planet.At 40 million years old, DS Tuc Ab is now the youngest planet for which scientists
have measured orbital tilt. Scientists used the young star as a proving ground for
new modeling techniques measuring stellar obliquity and planetary demographics.
Credit: M. Weiss
"The discovery of DS Tuc Ab in 2019 gave us a unique opportunity to take measurements of a planet around a very young star very soon after the planet's formation," said George Zhou, astronomer at CfA. "This planet is only 40 million years old; by comparison, our Solar System is 5 billion years old. We've never had a planet so young that we can study in this fashion before."
After a few billion years have passed planets change, making it more difficult for scientists to answer questions about the formation, life and maturation of planets. "A lot of things can happen between when a planet is formed and when we see them. The vast majority of planets we find are already mature and we don't know what they were like when they were young," said Zhou. "We've already learned that unlike other planets, DS Tuc Ab didn't pinball, or get flung into, its star system. That opens up many other possibilities for other similar, young exoplanets, and may help us to better understand older planets we already know about." ...
New Technique Could Elucidate Earliest Stages of Planet's Life
Carnegie Institution for Science | 2020 Mar 09
A Well Aligned Orbit for the 45 Myr Old Transiting Neptune DS Tuc Ab ~ G. Zhou et al
- arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1912.04095 > 09 Dec 2019 (v1), 04 Mar 2020 (v2)
- Astronomical Journal 159(3):112 (2020 Mar) DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/ab6d6d
- arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1912.03794 > 09 Dec 2019 (v1), 17 Jan 2020 (v2)