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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 NASA
NASA/Jim Grossmann In this photo from Aug. 7, 2009, Jose Hernandez, mission specialist, smiles at the camera as he waits for his turn to enter the space shuttle Discovery as part of STS-128. It was the 128th Shuttle mission and the 30th mission to the International Space Station. While at the orbital lab, the STS-128 crew conducted three spacewalks.
Hernandez joined NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston in 2001. There, he was a materials research engineer in the Materials & Processes branch; eventually, he became branch chief. In 2004, he was selected as an astronaut candidate, and in 2009, he became a crew member of STS-128.
Get to know some of our Hispanic colleagues, past and present, during Hispanic Heritage Month.
Image credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann
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By NASA
Learn about some of the engineering work being done by five members of NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, which aims to launch Thursday, Oct. 10.NASA With NASA’s Europa Clipper just weeks away from launch, five short videos give a behind-the-scenes peek at some of the engineers dedicated to making the mission a success.
What does it take to build a massive spacecraft that will seek to determine if a mysterious moon has the right ingredients for life? Find out in a new video series called “Behind the Spacecraft,” which offers behind-the-scenes glimpses into the roles of five engineers working on NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, from building the spacecraft’s communications systems to putting it through rigorous tests so the orbiter can meet its science goals in space.
With its launch period opening Thursday, Oct. 10, Europa Clipper is the agency’s first mission dedicated to exploring an ocean world beyond Earth. The spacecraft will travel 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) to the Jupiter system, where it will investigate the gas giant’s moon Europa, which scientists believe contains a global saltwater ocean beneath its icy shell.
The videos are being released here weekly. The first two are already out.
Meet the team:
Dipak Srinivasan, lead communications systems engineer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, makes sure the Europa Clipper team can communicate with the spacecraft. Learn more about his work in the video above. Sarah Elizabeth McCandless, navigation engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, helped plan Europa Clipper’s trajectory, ensuring the spacecraft arrives at Jupiter safely and has a path to fly by Europa dozens of times. Learn more about Sarah’s work here. Jenny Kampmeier, a science systems engineer at JPL, acts as an interface between mission scientists and engineers. Andres Rivera, a systems engineer at JPL and first-generation American, works on Europa Clipper’s cruise phase — the journey from Earth to Jupiter. Valeria Salazar, an integration and test engineer at JPL who spent her childhood in Mexico, helped test the Europa Clipper spacecraft to ensure its launch readiness. Upcoming Livestreams and Broadcasts
Europa Clipper experts will answer questions about the mission in a NASA Science Live show airing in English on Tuesday, Oct. 1, and in Spanish on Thursday, Oct. 3. The broadcasts will appear on NASA+, YouTube, Facebook, and X. The Spanish broadcast will be streamed on the NASA en Español YouTube channel. Viewers can submit questions on social media using the hashtag #askNASA or by leaving a comment in the chat section of the Facebook or YouTube stream.
Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission and will fly through the most punishing radiation environment of any planet in the solar system. The spacecraft will orbit Jupiter and, during multiple flybys of Europa, will collect a wealth of scientific data with nine science instruments and an experiment that uses its telecommunications system to gather gravity data.
More About Europa Clipper
Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The main spacecraft body was designed by APL in collaboration with JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, manages the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.
To learn more about Europa Clipper, visit:
https://europa.nasa.gov/
8 Things to Know About Europa Clipper NASA’s Europa Clipper Gets Its Giant Solar Arrays Kids Can Explore Europa With NASA’s Space Place Europa Clipper Teachable Moment News Media Contacts
Val Gratias / Gretchen McCartney
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-318-2141 / 818-393-6215
valerie.m.gratias@jpl.nasa.gov / gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
2024-127
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