A forbidden planet that escaped the fiery fate of its star

A forbidden planet that escaped the fiery fate of its star

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The planet Hala was first discovered by Korean astronomers in 2015 using a method called radial velocity, which uses the gravitational pull of hidden planets and its effect on the wobble of distant stars. However, the halo has a hidden secret: this planet is located in the orbit of the star Bakdu with a radius nearly 11 times that of the Sun and a mass of 1.6 times that of our star, and today it has become a red giant.

In order to prove that the halo is one of the main planets of Bakdu and not a cosmic wandering object, the researchers used the observations of the Keck Observatory and Telescope of Canada, France and Hawaii in 2021 and 2022 and proved that the 93-day and almost circular orbit of this planet lasts for almost more than It has remained constant for a decade.

The researchers narrowed down their possibilities to two options: the halo was probably born after Bakdu became a red giant, or Bakdu was once two stars in a binary system that merged and therefore could not swallow the halo. The following video shows the binary system scenario.

In addition to justifying the existence of the halo, the hypothesis of the merger of stars can be the cause of the high concentration of the lithium element in Bacdo. Lithium is not normally found in red giants, but may be formed by the merger of two stars.

The researchers call this discovery an exciting example of “unexpected properties” revealed in interactions between planets and stars. They suggest that future research on the Bakdu system use “blue wanderer” experts; A group of bright stars that are thought to be the result of a stellar merger.

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