Baby planet discovered by Nasa is shrinking. Its atmosphere is melting
Estimated to be just 8 million years old, TOI 1227 b is among the youngest exoplanets ever observed, a true "baby" compared to Earth's 5-billion-year-old age.'This planet's atmosphere simply cannot survive the X-ray blast from its star,' said Attila Varga, lead author and Ph.D. student at the Rochester Institute of Technology.His team found that TOI 1227 b is losing its atmosphere so rapidly that it could shed the equivalent of nearly two Earth masses within the next billion years — reducing in size and potentially evolving into a barren, rocky core.Currently, TOI 1227 b has a mass similar to Neptune but is three times larger in diameter, giving it a puffed-up, Jupiter-like appearance. Researchers believe this inflation is caused by the continuous X-ray exposure from its red dwarf host, TOI 1227, which is small in size but emits X-rays more intensely than our Sun.The planet is estimated to lose one Earth atmosphere's worth of mass every 200 years.Scientists say the extreme conditions make the planet inhospitable to life, now or ever, as it lies far from the "habitable zone" where liquid water could exist.The study, published in The Astrophysical Journal, offers valuable insights into how harsh stellar environments shape the evolution of young exoplanets and may help explain how some planets lose their atmospheres early in life.- EndsTrending Reel
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