AB Aurigae b

Aurigae b (or AB Aur b) is a protoplanet in the Protoplanetary disk of the star AB Aurigae. The star is about 505 light years from Earth. It is a young star, about two million years old. The star and everything in its system are in its early stages. In this growing solar system, astronomers can see the formation of the new gas giant. They can learn if the theories they have created about how stars are formed are correct. 

The current theory of “core accretion” says that planets are formed from small objects collecting dust, gas, and other materials as they all orbit a star. 

Aurigae b has  about 9 times the mass of Jupiter.  This would make it about 12,000 times bigger than Earth. The planet has an orbit of 8.6 billion miles from its star. This is twice the distance between our sun and Pluto. It is thought that core accretion could not happen this far from a star.  

An other theory. called “disk instability”, says that Aurigae b could have been formed in a more “top-down” process. It say that the protoplanetary disk is cooling and quickly breaking up. When this happens, gravity causes gas and matter to come together and form new planets. 

These findings come from an international team who used the adaptive optics system, infrared spectrography, and visible camera of the Subaru Telescope as well as the Hubble Space Telescope. The team was only able to collect solid evidence by using a variety of techniques and working with different groups. The findings were published by the University of Arizona. Their findings are creating a large number of discussions because this evidence supports what might be new facts in astronomy

References

Category:Exoplanets