Jupiter-like
planet
A team of researchers has discovered a Jupiter-like planet within
a young system that could provide a new understanding of how planets formed
around our sun.
Insights into planet formation could come from this
observation
(August 14, 2015) A
team of researchers has discovered a Jupiter-like planet within a young system
that could provide a new understanding of how planets formed around our sun.
The new planet, called 51 Eridani b, is the first exoplanet
discovered by the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), a new instrument operated by an
international collaboration headed by Bruce Macintosh, a professor of physics
in the Kavli Institute at Stanford University. It is a million times fainter
than its star and shows the strongest methane signature ever detected on an
alien planet, which should yield additional clues as to how the planet formed.
“The exploration of
very young planetary systems that will evolve to look like our own has just
begun,” said Didier Saumon of Los Alamos National Laboratory, whose role was
theoretical modeling and data analysis for the project.
“The Gemini Planet
Imager is amazing new technology that has quickly discovered the first
extrasolar analog of Jupiter, but much younger,” Saumon said.
The Gemini Planet Imager was designed specifically for
discovering and analyzing faint, young planets orbiting bright stars. The GPI
is located on the 8-meter Gemini South Telescope in Chile, although the
coordinating science teams are spread globally.
After GPI was installed on the telescope in Chile, the team
set out to look for planets orbiting young stars. They’ve looked at almost a
hundred stars so far. “This is exactly the kind of planet we envisioned
discovering when we designed GPI,” says James Graham, professor at UC Berkeley
and Project Scientist for GPI.
The results are published in the current issue of Science.