Latest news with #HIP67522
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Alien World Discovered Provoking Its Own Hellish Apocalypse
A planet that is snuggled up closely with its host star may be igniting colossal flares that strip it of its own mass. In a first-of-its-kind observation, astronomers have found a giant exoplanet in such a close orbit with its star that its presence is disturbing the star's magnetic field – causing it to erupt furiously, lashing the space around it with radiation. These outbursts pummel the exoplanet in turn, causing it to lose its puffy atmosphere at an accelerated rate. "We've found the first clear evidence of magnetic star-planet interaction, where a planet triggers energetic flares on its host star," says astrophysicist Ekaterina Ilin of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy. "What's particularly exciting is that this interaction has persisted for at least three years, allowing us to study it in detail." Related: Mysterious Radio Signals From Distant Stars Suggest The Presence of Hidden Planets Previously, astronomers had thought that stars were pretty independent and unassailable by anything as small as a planet, but a growing body of evidence suggests that this might not be the case. A Sun-like star named HIP 67522, and its exoplanet HIP 67522b, offer pretty conclusive evidence. The system is located around 408 light-years away, and is just 17 million years old – a mere toddler in star terms, with all the tempestuousness that implies. The exoplanet, which clocks in around the width of Jupiter but just 5 percent of its mass, whips dizzyingly fast around the star once every 6.95 days. As it does so, the planet's magnetic field appears to interact with the star's magnetic field. It gathers energy as it orbits, periodically unleashing it towards the star along its magnetic field, like the crack of a whip that awakens a giant flare directed right at HIP 67522b. The researchers cataloged 15 flares in the direction of the exoplanet in five years of observations. "The planet seems to be triggering particularly energetic flares," Ilin says. "The waves it sends along the star's magnetic field lines kick off flares at specific moments. But the energy of the flares is much higher than the energy of the waves. We think that the waves are setting off explosions that are waiting to happen." They calculated that HIP 67522b is receiving six times more radiation than it would if the planet wasn't pestering its host star. Because the exoplanet is so puffy and wispy, these flares are probably heating the atmosphere and causing it to leak out into space like a deflating balloon: it could be as small as Neptune in as little as 100 million years. The next step, the researchers say, is to find other such systems out there in the Milky Way to try to get a better grasp on this never-before-seen phenomenon. The research has been published in Nature. Impact That Gave Us a Moon Could Explain Why Earth Now Has Life Ice in Space Could Do Something We Thought Was Impossible Universe Will Start to Shrink in Just 7 Billion Years, Claims Study
Fast Company
07-07-2025
- Science
- Fast Company
This planet is drawing huge flares from its young star
Scientists are tracking a large gas planet experiencing quite a quandary as it orbits extremely close to a young star – a predicament never previously observed. This exoplanet, as planets beyond our solar system are called, orbits its star so tightly that it appears to trigger flares from the stellar surface – larger than any observed from the sun – reaching several million miles (km) into space that over time may strip much of this unlucky world's atmosphere. The phenomenon appears to be caused by the planet's interaction with the star's magnetic field, according to the researchers. And this star is a kind known to flare, especially when young. 'A young star of this type is an angry beast, especially if you're sitting as close up as this planet does,' said Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy astrophysicist Ekaterina Ilin, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature. The star, called HIP 67522, is slightly more massive than the sun and is located about 407 light-years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km). This star and planet, as well as a second smaller gas planet also detected in this planetary system, are practically newborns. Whereas the sun and our solar system's planets are roughly 4.5 billion years old, this star is about 17 million years old, with its planets slightly younger. The planet, named HIP 67522 b, has a diameter almost the size of Jupiter, our solar system's largest planet, but with only 5% of Jupiter's mass. That makes it one of the puffiest exoplanets known, with a consistency reminiscent of cotton candy (candy floss). It orbits five times closer to its star than our solar system's innermost planet Mercury orbits the sun, needing only seven days to complete an orbit. A flare is an intense eruption of electromagnetic radiation emanating from the outermost part of a star's atmosphere, called the corona. So how does HIP 67522 b elicit huge flares from the star? As it orbits, it apparently interacts with the star's magnetic field – either through its own magnetic field or perhaps through the presence of conducting material such as iron in the planet's composition. 'We don't know for sure what the mechanism is. We think it is plausible that the planet moves within the star's magnetic field and whips up a wave that travels along magnetic field lines to the star. When the wave reaches the stellar corona, it triggers flares in large magnetic field loops that store energy, which is released by the wave,' Ilin said. 'As it moves through the field like a boat on a lake, it creates waves in its wake,' Ilin added. 'The flares these waves trigger when they crash into the star are a new phenomenon. This is important because it had never been observed before, especially at the intensity detected.' The researchers believe it is a specific type of wave called an Alfvén wave, named for 20th century Swedish physicist and Nobel Prize laureate Hannes Alfvén, that propagates due to the interaction of magnetic fields. The flares may heat up and inflate the planet's atmosphere, which is dominated by hydrogen and helium. Being lashed by these flares could blast away lighter elements from the atmosphere and reduce the planet's mass over perhaps hundreds of millions of years. 'At that time, it will have lost most if not all the light elements, and become what's called a sub-Neptune – a gas planet smaller than Neptune,' Ilin said, referring to the smallest of our solar system's gas planets. The researchers used observations by two space telescopes: NASA's TESS, short for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, and the European Space Agency's CHEOPS, short for CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite. The plight of HIP 67522 b illustrates the many circumstances under which exoplanets exist. 'It is certainly no sheltered youth for this planet. But I am not sad about it. I enjoy diversity in all things nature, and what this planet will eventually become – perhaps a sub-Neptune rich in heavy elements that did not evaporate – is no less fascinating than what we observe today.'
India Today
03-07-2025
- Science
- India Today
One year on this newly discovered plant is just seven days on Earth
Astronomers have discovered a new planet, which is so close to its star that one year lasts just seven days. The planet completes one revolution around the Sun in just seven team found that the planet, dubbed HIP 67522 b, orbits its parent star so tightly that it appears to cause frequent flares from the star's surface, heating and inflating the planet's new planet was discovered by a team of scientists from the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland, led by Ekaterina Ilin of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy. They used space-borne telescopes, Nasa's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and the European Space Agency's CHaracterising ExoPlanets Telescope (CHEOPS), to track flares on the star. This is the first-ever evidence for a 'planet with a death wish'. Though it was theorised to be possible since the nineties, the flares seen in this research are around 100 times more energetic than expected. Astronomers using the European Space Agency's Cheops mission have caught a clingy exoplanet that seems to be triggering flares of radiation from the star it orbits. (Photo: ESA) advertisementThe planet is orbiting a star named HIP 67522, which was known to be just slightly larger and cooler than our own host star, the Sun. But while the Sun is a middle-aged 4.5-billion-year-old, HIP 67522 is a fresh-faced 17-million-year-old. It bears two planets."The star and the planet form a powerful but likely destructive bond. In a manner not yet fully understood, the planet hooks into the star's magnetic field, triggering flares on the star's surface; the flares whiplash energy back to the planet. Combined with other high-energy radiation from the star, the flare-induced heating appears to have increased the already steep inflation of the planet's atmosphere," Nasa said in a being bombarded with so much high-energy radiation does not bode well for HIP 67522 b. The planet is similar in size to Jupiter but has the density of candy floss, making it one of the wispiest exoplanets ever found. Graphic: ESA Over time, the radiation is eroding away the planet's feathery atmosphere, meaning it is losing mass much faster than expected. In the next 100 million years, it could go from an almost Jupiter-sized planet to a much smaller Neptune-sized planet seems to be triggering particularly energetic flares. The waves it sends along the star's magnetic field lines kick off flares at specific moments. But the energy of the flares is much higher than the energy of the waves. We think that the waves are setting off explosions that are waiting to happen,' points out Ekaterina.- Ends
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
'A completely new phenomenon': Astronomers spot a planet causing its star to constantly explode
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Astronomers have captured the first evidence of a "planet with a death wish" — an alien world that's orbiting so close to its star and so fast that it's causing the star to cook it to death with stellar explosions. The planet, called HIP 67522 b, is a wispy, Jupiter-size planet bound on a tight, seven-day orbit around its host star, HIP 67522. But these orbits are disturbing the star's magnetic field, causing enormous stellar eruptions to blow back on the planet and make it shrink. This marks the first time a planet has been observed influencing its host star, the scientists reported in a study published July 2 in the journal Nature. "The planet seems to be triggering particularly energetic flares," study first-author Ekaterina Ilin, an astrophysicist at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, said in a statement. "The waves it sends along the star's magnetic field lines kick off flares at specific moments. But the energy of the flares is much higher than the energy of the waves. We think that the waves are setting off explosions that are waiting to happen." Stars are gigantic balls of burning plasma whose charged particles, or ions, swirl over their surfaces to create powerful magnetic fields. Because magnetic-field lines cannot cross each other, sometimes these fields knot before suddenly snapping to launch bursts of radiation called solar flares, which are sometimes accompanied by enormous belches of surface plasma known as coronal mass ejections. Because many planets, including Earth, have magnetic fields, astronomers have long wondered whether planets with close orbits around their stars could disturb powerful stellar magnetic fields enough to trigger explosions. Related: James Webb telescope discovers its first planet — a Saturn-size 'shepherd' still glowing red hot from its formation To investigate this question, the astronomers conducted a broad sweep of stars using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which finds exoplanets by detecting the characteristic dimming of stars' light as planets pass in front of them. After flagging HIP 67522 as worthy of interest, the astronomers used the European Space Agency's (ESA) Characterising Exoplanet Satellite (Cheops) to investigate further. "We quickly requested observing time with Cheops, which can target individual stars on demand, ultra precisely," Ilin said. "With Cheops we saw more flares, taking the total count to 15, almost all coming in our direction as the planet transited in front of the star as seen from Earth." A vital piece of evidence was that these flares occurred when the planet passed in front of the star. This suggested that the planet is gathering energy as it orbits and is using it to "whip" the star's magnetic-field lines like a rope. When this shock wave passes down the field to the star's surface, a powerful flare erupts. RELATED STORIES —Scientists discover rare planet at the edge of the Milky Way, using space-time phenomenon predicted by Einstein —'Eyeball' planet spied by James Webb telescope might be habitable —Our sun may be overdue for a 'superflare' stronger than billions of atomic bombs, new research warns These flares are slowly stripping away the planet's diffuse atmosphere, layer by layer. The researchers project that, although HIP 67522 b is as big as Jupiter now, it could shrink to the size of Neptune in the next 100 million years. To further investigate this first-of-its-kind phenomenon, the researchers plan to take more readings with TESS, Cheops, and other exoplanet telescopes, such as ESA's upcoming Plato space telescope, which is scheduled to launch in 2026. "I have a million questions because this is a completely new phenomenon, so the details are still not clear," Ilin said. "There are two things that I think are most important to do now. The first is to follow up in different wavelengths (Cheops covers visible to near-infrared wavelengths) to find out what kind of energy is being released in these flares — for example ultraviolet and X-rays are especially bad news for the exoplanet. "The second is to find and study other similar star-planet systems; by moving from a single case to a group of 10-100 systems, theoretical astronomers will have something to work with," she added.
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Astronomers Found the Most Self-Destructive Planet in the Sky
Stars often whip their planets with solar winds and radiation, pull them ever closer with gravity and sear them with heat. But a newfound planet exerts an unexpectedly strong—and ultimately self-destructive—influence on its star in return. The star HIP 67522 is slightly larger than our sun and shines roughly 408 light-years away in the Scorpius-Centaurus star cluster. It's 17 million years old, a youngster by stellar standards, and has two orbiting planets that are even younger. The innermost of these two planets, a Jupiter-size gas giant called HIP 67522 b, orbits HIP 67522 at a distance of less than 12 times the star's radius—almost seven times closer than Mercury's distance from the sun in our Solar System. This in-your-face proximity, combined with HIP 67522's volatile teenage nature, has created a spectacle astronomers have never seen before: a planet that triggers powerful flares on the surface of its host star, leading to the planet's own slow destruction. 'In a way, we got lucky,' says Ekaterina Ilin, an astrophysicist at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON), who led the study on the HIP 67522 system, published on Wednesday in Nature. 'We took all the star-planet systems that we knew of and just went ahead looking for flares—sudden intense bursts of radiation coming from the star's surface.' Parsing through the data gathered by two space-based telescopes, NASA's TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and the European Space Agency's CHEOPS (Characterizing Exoplanet Satellite), Ilin's team noticed that HIP 67522's flares seemed to be synchronized with its closest planet's orbital period. And those flares were gigantic—'thousands of times more energetic than anything the sun can produce,' Ilin says. [Sign up for Today in Science, a free daily newsletter] The orbiting gas giant likely sparks these powerful flares by perturbing the star's strong magnetic field lines as it passes by in its orbit. This sends waves of energy downward along the lines—and when those waves meet the star's surface, a flare bursts out. The star's magnetic loops are 'almost like a spring waiting to be let go,' Ilin says. 'The planet's just giving it this last push.' Based on the team's observations, HIP 67522 b triggers a flare once every Earth day or two. And this action has severe consequences for the planet itself: Ilin estimates the unlucky gas giant gets six times more radiation than it would if it wasn't triggering flares and blasting away its own atmosphere. At this pace, Ilin's team says, HIP 67522 b will shrink from Jupiter's size to Neptune's in about 100 million years. 'Flaring might cut the lifetime of the planet's atmosphere in half,' she says. Researchers had suspected this type of star-planet interplay might occur, but they had never previously seen it, says Antoine Strugarek, an astrophysicist at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission's (CEA's) center CEA Paris-Saclay, who was not involved in the new study. 'This is the first time we see very convincing evidence such interaction has been actually detected,' he says. Ilin says it's too early to draw far-reaching conclusions from this first example of the phenomenon. As a next step, she says, researchers can compare HIP 67522 b with the other planet in the system, which orbits a bit farther from the star, to calculate how much mass the more closely orbiting world is actually losing through this process compared with the more distant one, which is likely only hit with random flares. Another unanswered question is exactly how the flare triggering works. 'Is it a wave [of magnetic energy] that propagates from the planet?' Ilin wonders. She suggests that what happens could be similar to an effect that has been seen on the sun: smaller solar flares sometimes perturb nearby magnetic loops and tip them over the edge to snap and produce a larger flare. But perhaps the most important question is how common the newly observed phenomenon is. For now, Ilin wants to focus on finding more systems where planets induce stellar flares that scientists can study. 'Once we figure out how it works, we can turn it into a planet-detection technique,' she says. Instead of searching for the planets themselves, researchers could look for stars that flare following a certain pattern—suggesting they, too, might have planets with a self-destructive bent.
