Tech
Astronomers discover ‘forbidden’ planet orbiting the “Neptunian Desert”
An international team of astronomers led by the University of Warwick has found a “forbidden” planet orbiting the “Neptunian Desert” of another star.
Located 920 light years from Earth, exoplanet NGTS-4b is 20 percent smaller than Neptune, yet it retains an atmosphere despite being close enough to circle its star once every 1.3 days and having a surface temperature of 1,000° C (1,800° F).
The hunt for exoplanets keeps throwing out surprises and the latest is a planet that simply shouldn’t be where it is.
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Discovered by the Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) telescope array at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in Chile’s infamous Atacama Desert, NGTS-4b is a “forbidden” planet in that it is a Neptune-sized planet with a mass 20 times that of the Earth, it is close to its star, but it still has an atmosphere.
It’s forbidden because it’s the first Neptune-like exoplanet with an atmosphere ever found that is situated in what is known as the Neptunian Desert. That is, the zone where such a world should be stripped of its gases and turned into a ball of rock.
However, by studying the way its host star’s light dips as NGTS-4b passes in front of it, the team was able to determine that it alters the light curve by 0.2 percent instead of the more usual 1 percent, indicating an atmosphere.
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