Podcaster: Tony Darnell
Title: Deep Astronomy – Exoplanet Radio – Ep. 36: A Glimpse into the Early Stages of Planetary Evolution
Organization: Deep Astronomy
Link : https://deepastronomy.space
Twitter @DeepAstronomy, https://facebook.com/DeepAstronomy
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/deepastronomy
Description: From September 14, 2023.
Deep in the cosmos, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered four new worlds orbiting a pair of young stars. These planets are providing scientists with a glimpse into a little-understood stage of planetary evolution – the time when atmospheres are being formed.
Bio: Tony Darnell is the owner of Deep Astronomy website and a host for the same hangout channel in Youtube. He has worked in the field of astronomy all my life, his first job was at a school district planetarium in Boulder, Colorado. With the exception of a stint in the Army in the 1980’s he has worked in many aspects of astronomical research.
Most of his time has been spent writing software to retrieve, process and analyze data taken from telescopes. He has worked with data from some of the world’s largest ground-based and space-based telescopes: from the four meter Blanco telescope in Chile to the Hubble Space Telescope.
Astronomy education has always been his passion and he has written articles for DeepAstronomy.space website and produce astronomy videos for YouTube on the DeepAstronomy channel.
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Transcript:
It’s the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast, coming in 3, 2, 1. This is Exoplanet Radio. I’m Tony Darnell.
Deep in the cosmos, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, has discovered four new worlds orbiting a pair of young stars. These planets are providing scientists with a glimpse into a little-understood stage of planetary evolution, the time when atmospheres are being formed. The stars TESS looked at are TOI 2076 and TOI 1807, and reside over 130 light-years away, with some 30 light-years between them, and they’re located in the northern constellations of Boötes and Canis Venitesi.
Both are K-type stars, which are dwarf stars more orange than our sun, and they are around 200 million years old, or less than 5% of the sun’s age. In 2017, using data from ESA’s Gaia satellite, scientists showed that the stars are traveling through space in the same direction, leading them to think they are related, born from the same cloud of gas. These stars are hyperactive, experiencing stellar flares much more energetic and frequent than those produced by our sun.
Around TOI 2076, astronomers discovered three mini-Neptunes. These are worlds between the diameters of Earth and Neptune. The innermost planet, TOI 2076b, circles its star once in only 10 days.
The outer planets, C and D, have orbits exceeding 17 days. TOI 1807 hosts only one known planet, TOI 1807b, and is the most extreme of the bunch. It orbits its star in an astonishingly fast 13 hours, making it one of the youngest ultra-short-period planets ever discovered.
Theory suggests the planets initially have thick atmospheres left over from their formation, but stellar radiation can erode these atmospheres, leaving behind rocky cores. Some planets may then develop secondary atmospheres through planetary processes like volcanic activity. The ages of TOI 2076 and TOI 1807 systems suggest that their planets may be somewhere in the middle of this atmospheric evolution.
All of these planets are bombarded with UV radiation, making life here unlikely at this stage in their development. TOI 2076b receives 400 times more UV light from its star than Earth does from the sun, and TOI 1807b gets around 22,000 times more. Scientists are currently working to measure the planets’ masses, but the interference from their hyperactive stars could make this challenging.
If scientists can discover the planets’ masses, that will help NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope determine if they have any atmospheres and study them. This discovery is a tantalizing glimpse into the early stages of planetary evolution. By studying these worlds, scientists can learn more about how planets form and how their atmospheres develop.
Exoplanet Radio is produced by Deep Astronomy. The music is by Geodesium and available at LochNessProductions.com. Get all episodes from ExoplanetRadio.com or anywhere you get podcasts.
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365 Days of Astronomy
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Until next time let the stars guide your curiosity