As of: February 14, 2024, 5:31 a.m
By: Tanja Banner
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A young planet in computer simulation.
Left: viewed from above it appears round.
Right: viewed from the side it appears “similar to a Smartie”.
© University of Central Lancashire
Until now, researchers have given little thought to what shape planets take when they form.
A new study now shows something surprising.
Preston - Research knows far more than 5,000 planets - eight in our solar system, many thousands outside.
These include the strangest variants: an exoplanet with the density of cotton candy, for example, or a celestial body that has the density of steel.
Research has also recently discovered a super-Earth in the habitable zone of its star.
Meanwhile, science is hoping for evidence of possible life on the exoplanet K2-18b.
But research cannot yet answer one question: How exactly does a planet actually form?
How do planets form?
Apparently they are not spherical to begin with
So far, science has assumed that planets form either through “core accretion” or through “disk instability”.
In the former, dust particles stick together over long periods of time and become larger and larger objects.
The second variant sees large rotating disks around young stars breaking up, creating planets.
“This theory is very interesting because large planets can form very quickly at great distances from their host star, which explains some observations of exoplanets,” explains Adam Fenton (University of Central Lancashire).
Together with a research team, Fenton looked at exactly how planets are formed.
“Many exoplanets have been discovered in the last three decades.
Although many thousands of them have been observed, their origins are still unclear,” says the researcher.
For the study, which
was accepted for publication by the journal
Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters , his team used computer simulations that model the formation of planets according to the theory of disk instability.
Shape of planets surprises in new study – “Very similar to smarties”
The research team's results are surprising: young planets appear to be flattened structures and not spherical objects.
“We have been studying planet formation for a long time, but never before had we thought of checking the shape of the planets as they form in the simulations,” explains co-author Dimitris Stamatellos in a statement.
"We had always assumed that they were spherical and were very surprised that they turned out to be flattened spheroids, very similar to smarties."
So far, no Smarties-shaped planets have been observed; all known exoplanets are round - just like the eight planets in our solar system.
However, if oblate young planets were one day discovered, it would suggest that the theory of disk stability may be in line with reality.
However, the theory of core accretion is currently preferred by researchers.
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“The results were amazing and worth the effort”
Study leader Fenton emphasizes: “It was an extremely demanding computing project that required half a million CPU hours in the British DiRAC high-performance computing facility.
But the results were astonishing and worth the effort!” Only in recent years has it become possible to observe young exoplanets using large telescopes such as the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) or the Very Large Telescope (VLT).
Perhaps one of the telescopes will soon discover a Smarties-shaped exoplanet.
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