After nearly five years of searching for planets ,
NASA
's Transiting Exoplanet
Survey Satellite
(TESS) astronomers found a Jupiter-sized planet outside our solar system and
dubbed it "The Forbidden Planet
. "
The curious thing about the chosen name is that it is
the same as that of a
1956 film, a science fiction recreation of The Tempest, by William Shakespeare in 1611. A tribute is presumed in the choice.
In the film, which takes place at the beginning of the 23rd century, the United Planets Cruiser C-57-D is sent to the planet Altair IV in the Altair star system, sixteen light-years from Earth, to find out what happened to a expedition sent 20 years earlier.
In the 21st century, in the NASA laboratories, for now,
it is only about science
.
It is located
280 light years from Earth
and its
scientific name is TOI 5205b
.
But
its characteristics
attract the attention of the world of science.
The "Forbidden Planet" equals Jupiter in dimensions, the largest and fifth most distant of those that make up our solar system, It
orbits a red dwarf star
called TOI-5205, according to CNN, which is equivalent to
40% of the size and the mass of our sun
.
Its temperature of about
3,127 degrees Celsius, cooler,
compared to the Sun's blazing average of 5,527 degrees.
In the report published by
The Astronomical Journal
, its author, Shubham Kanodia, says: "The host star, TOI-5205, is about four times the size of Jupiter, but somehow managed to form a Jupiter-sized planet,
which It's pretty amazing
."
The "Forbidden Planet".
Illustration by Katherine Cain/Carnegie Institution for Science/CNN
To plot the sizes of the discovered exoplanet and its host star, the researchers chose the figure of
a pea circling a lemon
.
In the solar system that integrates the Earth, the proportion would be that of a pea around a grapefruit, which would become our source of light and energy.
Why the "Forbidden" challenges the theories of how planets and stars are formed
As reported by the same American network, the discovery
challenges theories about the formation of celestial bodies
.
Stars form
from massive clouds of gas and dust
in space.
The material left over from the formation swirls around and creates
a "spinning disk" where planets are born
.
"The existence of TOI-5205b
expands
what we know about the disks in which these planets are born," Kanodia said.
“At first,
if there is not enough rocky material
in the disk to form the initial core, then a gas giant planet cannot form.
And in the end,
if the disk evaporates
before the massive core is formed, then a gas giant planet cannot form," explains the specialist. And yet, he stresses that "TOI-5205b was formed
despite these barriers
."
"Based on our current nominal understanding of planet formation, TOI-5205b
should not exist
; it is a 'forbidden' planet."
The
James Webb Space Telescope will be the tool from now on
to expand knowledge about the brand new object of study, while there are already signs of more planets similar to this one that "is
atypical, but not unique
," according to Kanodia.
On
February 16
, the creator of the discovery posted on his Twitter account: "I am
excited to announce the discovery
."
His account has just 366 followers and his message was boosted by that of the Carnegie Institution for Science, which through the same social network reinforced the idea that "his findings challenge entrenched ideas about the formation
of
planets ".
DS
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