Is This Exoplanet More Dense Than Steel?

Amaze Lab

Earth is pretty dense, much denser than its gas giant neighbors like Jupiter. However, compared to recently discovered exoplanet TOI-1853b, a planet that’s just a bit smaller than ice giant Neptune, it’s not even close.

Transcript

00:00The Earth is pretty dense, much denser than its gas neighbors like Jupiter.

00:08But compared to recently discovered exoplanet TOI 1853b, a planet that's just a bit smaller than ice giant Neptune, it's not even close.

00:16TOI 1853b is twice the density of our planet, meaning it's denser than steel.

00:22Scientists say when planets have this much material, they usually blow up into gas giants, which are about as dense as water.

00:28Leading scientists to believe that it likely had a tumultuous past.

00:32With Jingya Do, one of the researchers working on this study, saying, quote,

00:35Our work shows that this can happen if the planet experienced extremely energetic planet-to-planet collisions during its formation.

00:41These collisions stripped away some of the lighter atmosphere and water, leaving a substantially rock-enriched high-density planet.

00:48TOI 1853b has a radius around 3.46 times Earth's, but has a mass of 73.2 times.

00:55Its density measures 9.7 grams per cubic centimeter.

00:59That's compared to iron or steel, which are around 7.87 grams per cubic centimeter.

01:04With the researchers summarizing, we found that the initial planetary body would likely have needed to be water-rich

01:09and suffer an extreme giant impact at a speed of greater than 75 kilometers per second.

01:15To be continued...

01:24To be continued...

01:27To be continued...

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