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Photo Illustration of Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 & Planet Jupiter
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By NASA
Artist’s concept of a young, newly discovered planet, exposed to observation by a warped debris disk. Credit: Robert Hurt, Caltech-IPAC. The discovery
A huge planet with a long name – IRAS 04125+2902 b – is really just a baby: only 3 million years old. And because such infant worlds are usually hidden inside obscuring disks of debris, it is the youngest planet so far discovered using the dominant method of planet detection.
Key facts
The massive planet, likely still glowing from the heat of its formation, lies in the Taurus Molecular Cloud, an active stellar nursery with hundreds of newborn stars some 430 light-years away. The cloud’s relative closeness makes it a prime target for astronomers. But while the cloud offers deep insight into the formation and evolution of young stars, their planets are usually a closed book to telescopes like TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. These telescopes rely on the “transit method,” watching for the slight dip in starlight when a planet crosses the face of its host star. But such planetary systems must be edge-on, from Earth’s vantage point, for the transit method to work. Very young star systems are surrounded by disks of debris, however, blocking our view of any potentially transiting planets.
A research team has just reported an extraordinary stroke of luck. Somehow, the outer debris disk surrounding this newborn planet, IRAS 04125+2902 b, has been sharply warped, exposing the baby world to extensive transit observations by TESS.
Details
While the warped outer disk is a great coincidence, it’s also a great mystery. Possible explanations include a migration of the planet itself, moving closer to the star and, in the process, diverging from the orientation of the outer disk – so that, from Earth, the planet’s orbit is edge-on, crossing the face of the star, but the outer disk remains nearly face-on to us. One problem with this idea: Moving a planet so far out of alignment with its parent disk would likely require another (very large) object in this system. None has been detected so far.
The system’s sun happens to have a distant stellar companion, also a possible culprit in the warping of the outer disk. The angle of the orbit of the companion star, however, matches that of the planet and its parent star. Stars and planets tend to take the gravitational path of least resistance, so such an arrangement should push the disk into a closer alignment with the rest of the system – not into a radical departure.
Another way to get a “broken” outer disk, the study authors say, would not involve a companion star at all. Stellar nurseries like the Taurus Molecular Cloud can be densely packed, busy places. Computer simulations show that rains of infalling material from the surrounding star-forming region could be the cause of disk-warping. Neither simulations nor observations have so far settled the question of whether warped or broken disks are common or rare in such regions.
Fun facts
Combining TESS’s transit measurements with another way of observing planets yields more information about the planet itself. We might call this second approach the “wobble” method. The gravity of a planet tugs its star one way, then another, as the orbiting planet makes its way around the star. And that wobble can be detected by changes in the light from the star, picked up by specialized instruments on Earth. Such “radial velocity” measurements of this planet reveal that its mass, or heft, amounts to no more than about a third of our own Jupiter. But the transit data shows the planet’s diameter is about the same. That means the planet has a comparatively low density and, likely, an inflated atmosphere. So this world probably is not a gas giant like Jupiter. Instead, it could well be a planet whose atmosphere will shrink over time. When it finally settles down, it could become a gaseous “mini-Neptune” or even a rocky “super-Earth.” These are the two most common planet types in our galaxy – despite the fact that neither type can be found in our solar system.
The discoverers
A science team led by astronomer Madyson G. Barber of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill published the study, “A giant planet transiting a 3 Myr protostar with a misaligned disk,” in the journal Nature in November 2024.
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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:09:09 On 12 November 2014, after a ten-year journey through the Solar System and over 500 million kilometres from home, Rosetta’s lander Philae made space exploration history by touching down on a comet for the first time. On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of this extraordinary feat, we celebrate by taking a look back over the mission's highlights.
Rosetta was an ESA mission with contributions from its Member States and NASA. It studied Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for over two years, including delivering lander Philae to the comet’s surface. Philae was provided by a consortium led by DLR, MPS, CNES and ASI.
read the article Philae’s extraordinary comet landing relived.
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By European Space Agency
On 12 November 2014, after a ten year journey through the Solar System and over 500 million kilometres from home, Rosetta’s lander Philae made space exploration history by touching down on a comet for the first time. On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of this extraordinary feat, we celebrate Philae’s impressive achievements at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
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By NASA
2 min read
NASA-Funded Study Examines Tidal Effects on Planet and Moon Interiors
NASA-supported scientists have developed a new method to compute how tides affect the interiors of planets and moons. Importantly, the new study looks at the effects of body tides on objects that don’t have a perfectly spherical interior structure, which is an assumption of most previous models.
The puzzling, fascinating surface of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa looms large in this newly-reprocessed color view, made from images taken by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s. This is the color view of Europa from Galileo that shows the largest portion of the moon’s surface at the highest resolution. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute Body tides refer to the deformations experienced by celestial bodies when they gravitationally interact with other objects. Think of how the powerful gravity of Jupiter tugs on its moon Europa. Because Europa’s orbit isn’t circular, the crushing squeeze of Jupiter’s gravity on the moon varies as it travels along its orbit. When Europa is at its closest to Jupiter, the planet’s gravity is felt the most. The energy of this deformation is what heats up Europa’s interior, allowing an ocean of liquid water to exist beneath the moon’s icy surface.
“The same is true for Saturn’s moon Enceladus.” says co-author Alexander Berne of CalTech in Pasadena and an affiliate at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Enceladus has an ice shell that is expected to be much more non-spherically symmetric than that of Europa.”
The body tides experienced by celestial bodies can affect how the worlds evolve over time and, in cases like Europa and Enceladus, their potential habitability for life as we know it. The new study provides a means to more accurately estimate how tidal forces affect planetary interiors.
In this movie Europa is seen in a cutaway view through two cycles of its 3.5 day orbit about the giant planet Jupiter. Like Earth, Europa is thought to have an iron core, a rocky mantle and a surface ocean of salty water. Unlike on Earth, however, this ocean is deep enough to cover the whole moon, and being far from the sun, the ocean surface is globally frozen over. Europa’s orbit is eccentric, which means as it travels around Jupiter, large tides, raised by Jupiter, rise and fall. Jupiter’s position relative to Europa is also seen to librate, or wobble, with the same period. This tidal kneading causes frictional heating within Europa, much in the same way a paper clip bent back and forth can get hot to the touch, as illustrated by the red glow in the interior of Europa’s rocky mantle and in the lower, warmer part of its ice shell. This tidal heating is what keeps Europa’s ocean liquid and could prove critical to the survival of simple organisms within the ocean, if they exist. The giant planet Jupiter is now shown to be rotating from west to east, though more slowly than its actual rate. NASA/JPL-Caltech The paper also discusses how the results of the study could help scientists interpret observations made by missions to a variety of different worlds, ranging from Mercury to the Moon to the outer planets of our solar system.
The study, “A Spectral Method to Compute the Tides of Laterally Heterogeneous Bodies,” was published in The Planetary Science Journal.
For more information on NASA’s Astrobiology Program, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/astrobiology
-end-
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
A SWOT data visualization shows water on the northern side of Greenland’s Dickson Fjord at higher levels than on the southern side on Sept. 17, 2023. A huge rockslide into the fjord the previous day led to a tsunami lasting nine days that caused seismic rumbling around the world. NASA Earth Observatory Data from space shows water tilting up toward the north side of the Dickson Fjord as it sloshed from south to north and back every 90 seconds for nine days after a 2023 rockslide.
The international Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite mission, a collaboration between NASA and France’s CNES (Centre National d’Études Spatiales), detected the unique contours of a tsunami that sloshed within the steep walls of a fjord in Greenland in September 2023. Triggered by a massive rockslide, the tsunami generated a seismic rumble that reverberated around the world for nine days. An international research team that included seismologists, geophysicists, and oceanographers recently reported on the event after a year of analyzing data.
The SWOT satellite collected water elevation measurements in Dickson Fjord on Sept. 17, 2023, the day after the initial rockslide and tsunami. The data was compared with measurements made under normal conditions a few weeks prior, on Aug. 6, 2023.
In the data visualization (above), colors toward the red end of the scale indicate higher water levels, and blue colors indicate lower-than-normal levels. The data suggests that water levels at some points along the north side of the fjord were as much as 4 feet (1.2 meters) higher than on the south.
“SWOT happened to fly over at a time when the water had piled up pretty high against the north wall of the fjord,” said Josh Willis, a sea level researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Seeing the shape of the wave — that’s something we could never do before SWOT.”
In a paper published recently in Science, researchers traced a seismic signal back to a tsunami that began when more than 880 million cubic feet of rock and ice (25 million cubic meters) fell into Dickson Fjord. Part of a network of channels on Greenland’s eastern coast, the fjord is about 1,772 feet (540 meters) deep and 1.7 miles (2.7 kilometers) wide, with walls taller than 6,000 feet (1,830 meters).
Far from the open ocean, in a confined space, the energy of the tsunami’s motion had limited opportunity to dissipate, so the wave moved back and forth about every 90 seconds for nine days. It caused tremors recorded on seismic instruments thousands of miles away.
From about 560 miles (900 kilometers) above, SWOT uses its sophisticated Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) instrument to measure the height of nearly all water on Earth’s surface, including the ocean and freshwater lakes, reservoirs, and rivers.
“This observation also shows SWOT’s ability to monitor hazards, potentially helping in disaster preparedness and risk reduction,” said SWOT program scientist Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
It can also see into fjords, as it turns out.
“The KaRIn radar’s resolution was fine enough to make observations between the relatively narrow walls of the fjord,” said Lee-Lueng Fu, the SWOT project scientist. “The footprint of the conventional altimeters used to measure ocean height is too large to resolve such a small body of water.”
More About SWOT
Launched in December 2022 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, SWOT is now in its operations phase, collecting data that will be used for research and other purposes.
The SWOT satellite was jointly developed by NASA and CNES, with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the UK Space Agency. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California, leads the U.S. component of the project. For the flight system payload, NASA provided the KaRIn instrument, a GPS science receiver, a laser retroreflector, a two-beam microwave radiometer, and NASA instrument operations. CNES provided the Doppler Orbitography and Radioposition Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) system, the dual frequency Poseidon altimeter (developed by Thales Alenia Space), the KaRIn radio-frequency subsystem (together with Thales Alenia Space and with support from the UK Space Agency), the satellite platform, and ground operations. CSA provided the KaRIn high-power transmitter assembly. NASA provided the launch vehicle and the agency’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, managed the associated launch services.
To learn more about SWOT, visit:
https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov
News Media Contacts
Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0307 / 626-379-6874
jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov
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Last Updated Oct 31, 2024 Related Terms
SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) Earth Earth Science Earth Science Division Jet Propulsion Laboratory Explore More
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