Baby Exoplanet Is Getting Hit By ‘Barrage Of X-Rays’ Causing To Shrink

Space.com

Exoplanet TOI 1227 b is being bombarded by x-rays from its host red dwarf star, causing it to “shrink from the size of Jupiter with a thick atmosphere to a small, barren world,” according to the NASA Chandra team.  Credit: NASA/CXC/A. Hobar

Transcript

00:00Visit Chandra's Beautiful Universe

00:05TOI-1227b

00:09A baby planet is shrinking from the size of Jupiter with a thick atmosphere to a small,

00:16barren world, according to a new study from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

00:21This devastating transformation is happening as the host star is unleashing a barrage of X-rays

00:28that is tearing the young planet's atmosphere away at an enormous rate.

00:33The planet, named TOI-1227b, is in an orbit around a red dwarf star about 330 light-years from Earth.

00:44TOI-1227b orbits very close to its star, less than a fifth the distance that Mercury orbits the Sun,

00:51and the new study shows this exoplanet is a baby at a mere 8 million years old.

00:57By comparison, the Sun is about 5 billion years old, or nearly a thousand times older.

01:06A research team found that X-rays from its star are blasting TOI-1227b and tearing away its atmosphere

01:13at such a rate that the planet will entirely lose it in about a billion years.

01:18At that point, the planet will have lost a total mass equal to about two Earth masses,

01:24down from about 17 times the mass of the Earth now.

01:29The planet's atmosphere simply cannot withstand the high X-ray dose it's receiving from its star.

01:34Indeed, it is probably impossible for anything or anyone to live on TOI-1227b, either now or in the future.

01:42However, the planet is too close to its star to fit into any definition of a habitable zone,

01:48a term astronomers use to determine if planets around other stars could sustain liquid water on their surface.

01:54The star that hosts TOI-1227b, which is called TOI-1227,

02:02is only about a tenth the mass of the Sun and is much cooler and fainter in optical light.

02:08In X-rays, however, TOI-1227b is brighter than the Sun

02:13and is subjecting this planet, in its very close orbit, to a withering assault.

02:17The mass of TOI-1227b, while poorly determined, is likely similar to that of Neptune.

02:26But its diameter is three times larger than Neptune's, making it similar in size to Jupiter.

02:33This is the latest example of Chandra helping scientists get a better handle

02:38of the high-energy radiation, like X-rays, that planets outside our solar system receive.

02:43If we are going to understand how habitable or even viable a planet is, or not,

02:50this kind of information is crucial.

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