IRAS 04125+2902b is described as “a surprising turning point that challenges our current understanding of how planets form.”
A research team led by astronomer Madyson Barber from the University of North Carolina (USA) has discovered the existence of a protoplanet named IRAS 04125+2902b from data collected by NASA’s TESS spacecraft.
IRAS 04125+2902b has a radius of 0.96 times that of Jupiter and a mass of less than 0.3 times that of Jupiter, located 522 light-years away from Earth.
Also known as TIDYE-1b, this giant exoplanet orbits its parent star, IRAS 04125+2902, with a period of 8.83 days.
Planet IRAS 04125+2902b and its parent star – (Graphic: NASA).
According to Dr. Barber, IRAS 04125+2902b is challenging humanity’s understanding of how planets form in several ways.
First, this exoplanet has formed despite only beginning to develop 3 million years ago.
Our Earth took about 10-20 million years to shape its earliest version.
According to Sci-News, this discovery sheds light on the potential differences between our Solar System and planetary systems that contain giant planets like IRAS 04125+2902b.
It also opens new avenues for research as this planet remains within its material disk, allowing scientists to study the formation process in detail.
This disk challenges our understanding of cosmology once again.
Planets in the Solar System and many known star systems typically form from a flat disk of dust and gas.
For example, the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all lie on a flat plane.
However, with the newly discovered young planet, the disk is tilted, not aligned with either the planet itself or its star.
This has been described by researchers as “a surprising turning point that challenges our current understanding of how planets form.”
A preliminary study of this intriguing world has just been published in the scientific journal Nature. However, this is only the beginning.
According to the authors, subsequent studies will analyze the comparison between the atmosphere of this planet and the surrounding disk material, providing clues about how it maintains such a tight orbit around its parent star.
The authors will also investigate whether IRAS 04125+2902b continues to grow by accumulating material or is losing its upper atmospheric layer due to the influence of its parent star.
