Astronomers Discover Another Planet that Breaks Our Planet Formation Theory

Amaze Lab

TOI-4860b is a fairly nearby planet in another star system located just 260 light-years away. It’s also quite strange. It’s a gas giant around the size of Saturn, but orbits a star only one-third the size of the Sun.

Transcript

00:00 TOI-4860b is a fairly nearby planet in another star system, located just 260 light years

00:11 away.

00:12 But it's also quite strange.

00:13 It's a gas giant around the size of Saturn, but orbits a star only one third the size

00:18 of the Sun.

00:19 And it orbits that star at such a speed and proximity, it only takes the planet 1.52 days

00:24 to rip around the star.

00:25 And that's what's baffling astronomers.

00:27 They have no idea how a planet could form in this way.

00:30 That's because stars form when extremely dense cosmic clouds of debris accrete, spinning

00:34 and coming together to feed the hungry fusion reaction that takes place.

00:37 The leftovers then become planets.

00:39 However, the smaller the star, the less leftovers.

00:42 Meaning scientists don't really know how a star so small could have enough leftover

00:46 material in its disk to create a gas giant of such a magnitude.

00:50 And TOI-4860b isn't alone.

00:52 They've found others that meet the same bizarre planet formation theory bending sizes.

00:57 The best explanations are that gravitational interactions may have brought the planets

01:00 closer to their stars, while others suggest that heavier elements now discovered in the

01:05 system could be to blame for the weird and physics-breaking situations.

01:09 [music]

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