Astronomers Directly Image Giant Planet-Like Object around Sun-Like Star

by

Using three instruments on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), an international team of astronomers has discovered and imaged a giant sub-stellar object — a giant planet or a brown dwarf — around the very young, Sun-like star TYC 8998-760-1.

http://cdn.sci-news.com/images/enlarge7/image_8464_1e-TYC-8998-760-1b.jpg
This SPHERE image shows TYC 8998-760-1b. Image credit: Bohn et al, doi: 10.1093/mnras/stz3462.

TYC 8998-760-1 is a K3-type star located 309 light-years away in the small southern constellation of Musca.

Also known as 2MASS J13251211-6456207, the star is about the same mass as our Sun, but is only 16.7 million years old.

This means that its newly-imaged companion, dubbed TYC 8998-760-1b, formed only recently.

The object is 3 times the size of our Jupiter and about 14 times more massive.

It has an estimated surface temperature of about 1,400 degrees Celsius (2,600 degrees Fahrenheit) and likely has a highly inflated atmosphere.

“TYC 8998-760-1b is among the youngest and least massive companions that are directly detected around solar-type stars,” said Leiden Observatory astronomer Alexander Bohn and his colleagues from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and the United States.

http://cdn.sci-news.com/images/enlarge7/image_8464_2e-TYC-8998-760-1b.jpg
These images from VLT’s SPHERE and NaCo instruments show the TYC 8998-760-1 system; proper motion analysis proves that all objects north of the star are background (bg) stars, while the object south-west of TYC 8998-760-1 (highlighted by the white arrow) is co-moving with its host. Image credit: Bohn et al, doi: 10.1093/mnras/stz3462.

The discovery is part of the Young Suns Exoplanet Survey (YSES) of 70 young, solar-mass stars located in the Lower Centaurus-Crux subgroup of the Scorpius-Centaurus association.

The researchers were able to directly image TYC 8998-760-1b using VLT’s SPHERE (Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet Research) and NaCo (Nasmyth Adaptive Optics System/Near-Infrared Imager and Spectrograph) instruments.

They also analyzed medium-resolution data on TYC 8998-760-1 collected by VLT’s X-SHOOTER spectrograph.

“The discovery of TYC 8998-760-1b opens many pathways for future ground and space-based characterization of the solar-like environment at a very early stage of its evolution,” the scientists said.

Their paper was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.