- Researchers at the University of Sheffield have proposed a new origin for Jupiter-like planets around massive stars that are more than three times the mass of our Sun.
- In theory, planets can form around these stars, but the stars emit large amounts of ultraviolet radiation that prevent planets from growing to the size of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.
- Instead, scientists show that these planets, called “BEASTies,” can be captured around, or even stolen by, massive stars, in what the researchers call a “planetary heist.”
A new study has found that Jupiter-sized planets can be stolen or captured by massive stars in the densely populated stellar nurseries where most stars are born.
Researchers at the University of Sheffield have proposed a new explanation for the recently discovered B star Abundance Exoplanet Study (BEAST) planets. These are Jupiter-like planets at great distances (hundreds of times the distance between Earth and the Sun) from massive stars.
Until now, their formation has been a mystery, as massive stars emit large amounts of ultraviolet radiation that prevent planets from growing to the size of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.
Study co-author Dr Emma Daffern-Powell, from the University of Sheffield’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, added: “Our previous research has shown that in stellar nurseries stars can steal planets from other stars, or capture what we call “free” floating planets. We know that massive stars have more influence on these nurseries than Sun-like stars, and we discovered that these massive stars can capture or steal planets, which we call “BEASTies” .
“Essentially, this is a planetary heist. We have used computer simulations to show that the theft or capture of these BEASTS occurs on average once in the first 10 million years of the evolution of a forming region stellar”.
Dr Richard Parker, Professor of Astrophysics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Sheffield, explains: “The BEAST planets are a new addition to the myriad of exoplanetary systems, which show incredible diversity, from planetary systems in the around Sun-like stars that are very different from our Solar System, to planets orbiting evolved or dead stars
“The BEAST collaboration has discovered at least two superjovian planets orbiting massive stars. Although planets can form around massive stars, it is hard to imagine that gas giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn could form in environments so hostile, where radiation from stars can evaporate planets before they are fully formed.
“However, our simulations show that these planets can be captured or stolen, in orbits very similar to those observed for the BEASTies. Our results lend more credence to the idea that planets in more distant orbits (over 100 times distance from the Earth to the Sun) may not be orbiting their parent star.”
The research was carried out by Dr Richard Parker and Dr Emma Daffern-Powell from the University of Sheffield and is part of a wider research program which aims to establish what common planetary systems like ours look like in the context of the many thousands of other planetary systems. in the Milky Way galaxy.
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