Latest news with #TOI-6894
Scientific American
a day ago
- Science
- Scientific American
New Doubts about Milky Way–Andromeda Collision, Explanation of 2023 Marine Heat Wave and Worms That Build Towers
Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! For Scientific American 's Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feltman. Let's kick off the week with a quick roundup of some science news you may have missed. You've probably heard that our galaxy, the Milky Way, is doomed to collide with the neighboring Andromeda galaxy sometime around 5 billion years from now. But according to new research, maybe we shouldn't count on this multigalactic merger deal going through. In a study published last Monday in Nature Astronomy, researchers who analyzed data from the European Space Agency's Gaia space telescope and NASA's Hubble say the event is more of a coin flip than a given: the team's 100,000 computer simulations suggest there's just about a 50/50 chance of the two galaxies colliding within the next 10 billion years or so. When you look at the next 4 to 5 billion years, that chance drops down to around 2%. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. In other space news, scientists are buzzing about a tiny star that punches way above its weight. TOI-6894 is a red dwarf that's roughly 20% as massive as our sun. But in a study published last Wednesday in Nature Astronomy, researchers say they've spotted the signature of a giant planet orbiting the little guy. The planet, called TOI-6894b, is described as a low-density gas giant—it is a little bigger than Saturn, but only has around half as much mass. Astronomers say the presence of a gas giant around such a small star is so surprising that it challenges the most widely accepted theory of planet formation. That theory, called core accretion, suggests that giant planets are born when their solid cores get massive enough to start pulling in lots of gas. Smaller stars generally lack enough gas and dust in their protoplanetary discs to allow for such a process, but this red dwarf ended up with a gas giant anyhow. Because red dwarf stars are super common in our galaxy, this could mean gas giants are more plentiful than we thought. The researchers will use the James Webb Space Telescope to study the planet's atmosphere, which should provide more clues about its formation. Now let's move on to some environmental news. Back in the summer of 2023 an extreme marine heat wave hit the North Atlantic Ocean, affecting water temperatures from Greenland to the Sahara and all the way over to the Americas. A study published last Wednesday in Nature aimed to explain why. The researchers say the summer temperature surge was equivalent to around 20 years of typical warming in the North Atlantic. While climate change, of course, played a role, the new study pinpoints some other factors that made water temperatures particularly hot that summer. For starters, in June and July of that year, the winds over the North Atlantic were weaker than at any other period on record, which meant less churning to mix sun-warmed surface waters. As a result heat was more concentrated and rose more quickly. The researchers also note that it's possible a reduction in sulphur emissions led to fewer clouds in some areas, so more sunlight hit the water. But the scientists were quick to add that weak wind was the primary driver—and that climate change is likely to make things worse. Reducing pollution from the atmosphere, generally speaking, remains a great thing to do. In a news release, the study's lead author noted that if we don't cut down our fossil fuel emissions, extreme marine heat waves like the one we saw in 2023 will only get more common and more intense. And that's bad news for everyone: warm water releases heat into the atmosphere, contributing to heat waves and severe rainstorms. Warmer oceans also mean more hurricanes. And higher water temperatures are tied to increases in coral bleaching as well. But another study, published last Thursday in Frontiers in Marine Science, offers some hope for ailing coral—not from bleaching but from a disease that can be just as devastating to a reef. Stony coral tissue loss disease, or SCTLD, was first identified off the coast of Florida just over a decade ago and has now been spotted on reefs throughout the Caribbean. More than 20 species of coral can catch it. SCTLD quickly destroys a coral's soft tissue, with some species dying within weeks of symptoms appearing. It's not clear exactly what causes SCTLD, but it seems likely that bacteria at least play a part because treating affected corals with an antibiotic paste has been shown to help them survive. The issue with this treatment is that it's a temporary fix, and it opens the door for the potential evolution of a resistant strain of whatever bacterium is involved. This new study reports on the promising results of treating coral with pro biotics instead. Corals have microbiomes just like we do, and a boost of good bacteria seems to help keep them healthy. The researchers behind the new study started by testing more than 200 strains of bacteria from disease-resistant corals and ultimately focusing on a particularly promising strain from great star corals in the lab. In 2020 the scientists took their experiment into the ocean, applying a solution of seawater and probiotics to a Florida reef impacted by SCTLD and using weighted plastic bags to create a sort of in-ocean aquarium that kept the treatment from floating away. After two and a half years, the probiotics seemed to be preventing the spread of SCTLD without causing any other disruptions to the reefs' microbiome. More research is needed to see how this treatment might impact coral in other regions, but probiotics could prove to be an important tool for fighting this devastating disease. We'll wrap up today's episode with something fun, if maybe also a little bit creepy: an act of 'collective hitchhiking' featuring a living tower of worms. Nematodes are tiny worms that you probably don't spend much time thinking about, but they're actually the most abundant animals on Earth, making up an estimated four-fifths of all animal life on our planet. According to a study published last Thursday in Current Biology, these creatures might sometimes use their vast numbers to make up for their miniscule size. Individual nematodes will sometimes stand on their tails and wave around to try to hitch a ride on a passing animal. Scientists have long suspected that they can also link together to form multi-worm 'towers' to increase their height, but this had only ever been observed in a lab setting. In the new study scientists describe seeing some of these waving worm towers inside decaying apples and pears found in the dirt of orchards. Further observations proved that, far from a chaotic pile of worms, these structures reflect the kind of superorganism behavior we see in slime molds and fire ants. While many species of nematode could be found in each piece of rotting fruit, the towers only consisted of members of the same species. Once in place, the nematodes would wave in unison as if they were one giant worm. Experiments in the lab showed that nematodes could self-assemble in just two hours and remain stable for more than 12. They could even create little arms with which to explore the space and build bridges to cross gaps to new locations. So the next time you're struggling with a group project at school or work, just remind yourself that even nematodes can figure out how to work together. That's all for this week's science news roundup. We'll be back on Wednesday. Science Quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more up-to-date and in-depth science news.
NDTV
4 days ago
- Science
- NDTV
Discovery Of Small Star Giving Birth To Huge Planet Leaves Scientists Puzzled
Astronomers were left stunned after they found a giant planet, about the same size as Saturn, orbiting a really small red dwarf star, a study published in Nature Astronomy revealed. The star, named TOI-6894, is only about a fifth the mass of the Sun. The observation is quite intriguing, as notable planet formation theories suggest that it shouldn't have happened, as small stars should host small planets similar to Earth and Mars, not big ones. Astronomers believe that small stars are not expected to have suitable conditions for planet formation. TOI-6894 is roughly 240 light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo. It is the smallest-known star to host a large planet. Meanwhile, the planet, called TOI-6894b, is a gas giant, like the Milky Way has Saturn and Jupiter. The planet is completing an orbit in approximately three days, as it is about 40 times closer to its star as compared to Earth is to the Sun. Its location suggests that TOI-6894b's surface must be hot. In size, it is bigger than Saturn but slightly smaller than Jupiter. In mass, it is 56% that of Saturn and 17% that of Jupiter. "I was very excited by this discovery. I originally searched through TESS observations of more than 91,000 low-mass red-dwarf stars looking for giant planets," says astrophysicist Edward Bryant of the University of Warwick in the UK, who led the international research team. "Then, using observations taken with one of the world's largest telescopes, ESO's VLT, I discovered TOI-6894b, a giant planet transiting the lowest mass star known to date to host such a planet. We did not expect planets like TOI-6894b to be able to form around stars this low-mass. This discovery will be a cornerstone for understanding the extremes of giant planet formation," Bryant said. Bryant added, "The question of how such a small star can host such a large planet is one that this discovery raises - and we are yet to answer." The star and planet system was discovered during an investigation of NASA's TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and the European Southern Observatory's Chile-based Very Large Telescope (VLT). "In small clouds of dust and gas, it's hard to build a giant planet," said exoplanet scientist and study co-author Vincent Van Eylen of University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory. "This is because to build a giant planet, you need to quickly build a large planet core and then quickly accrete (accumulate) a lot of gas on top of that core. But there's only so much time to do it before the star starts shining and the disk rapidly disappears. In small stars, we think there's simply not enough mass available to build a giant planet quickly enough before the disk disappears," Van Eylen added. How are planets formed? The formation process starts with the Giant Molecular Cloud, in which a giant cloud of gas and dust collapses under its own gravity. After that, the centre of the cloud becomes a protostar, which eventually becomes a star. Then a disk of gas and dust forms around the protostar. The small particles in the disk stick together, growing into larger bodies called planetesimals. Then the collision and merger of Planetesimals happen, forming larger planetary embryos. The embryos undergo differentiation, where heavier elements sink to the centre.
Daily Tribune
5 days ago
- Science
- Daily Tribune
Huge planet discovered orbiting tiny star puzzles scientists
AFP | Paris Astronomers announced yesterday they have discovered a massive planet orbiting a tiny star, a bizarre pairing that has stumped scientists. Most of the stars across the Milky Way are small red dwarfs like TOI-6894, which has only 20 percent the mass of our Sun. It had not been thought possible that such puny, weak stars could provide the conditions needed to form and host huge planets. But an international team of astronomers have detected the unmistakable signature of a gas giant planet orbiting the undersized TOI-6894, according to a study in the journal Nature Astronomy. This makes the star the smallest star yet known to host a gas giant. The planet has a slightly larger radius than Saturn, but only half its mass. It orbits its star in a little over three days. The astronomers discovered the planet when searching through more than 91,000 low-mass red dwarfs observed by NASA's TESS space telescope. Its existence was then confirmed by ground-based telescopes, including Chile's Very Large Telescope. 'The fact that this star hosts a giant planet has big implications for the total number of giant planets we estimate exist in our galaxy,' study co-author Daniel Bayliss of the UK's Warwick University said in a statement. Another co-author, Vincent Van Eylen, of University College London, said it was an 'intriguing discovery'. 'We don't really understand how a star with so little mass can form such a massive planet!' he said. 'This is one of the goals of the search for more exoplanets. By finding planetary systems different from our solar system, we can test our models and better understand how our own solar system formed.'
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
A tiny star gave birth to a giant exoplanet, but no one knows how
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Like a family in which short parents have tall children, a tiny red dwarf star is defying our understanding of how planets form by existing alongside a giant exoplanet. Giant planets are not rare per se — after all, we have four in our own solar system. Such large worlds are, however, rarely found around the smallest stars, red dwarfs. Red dwarfs simply shouldn't have enough material to form such huge worlds. Well, tell that to the red dwarf star TOI-6894, which is located 238 light-years away. It has just 20% of the mass of the sun, but has been found to host a giant planet, TOI-6894b, that's a little larger than Saturn, albeit with only about half the mass of the ringed planet. Statistical work has shown that only about 1.5% of red dwarfs harbor gas giant planets, so TOI-6894 is among a rare breed indeed. And it is by far the least massive star to be found with an orbiting giant planet: 60% less massive than the next lowest-mass star with a gas giant. Given how scarce such worlds around red dwarfs are, finding this new planet in data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) was not easy. (The "TOI"' in the system's name refers to a "TESS object of interest.") "I originally searched through TESS observations of more than 91,000 low-mass red dwarf stars looking for giant planets," Edward Bryant of the University of Warwick, who led the discovery, said in a statement. Upon discovering that TESS had recorded TOI-6894b transiting its star, which gave Bryant the planet's radius, his team then observed it with the ESPRESSO (Echelle Spectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations) spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope in Chile, and SPIRou (Spectropolarimétre Infrarouge) spectrograph on the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea to determine its mass. However, "we don't really understand how a star with so little mass can form such a massive planet," team-member Vincent Van Eylen of University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory said in the statement There are two models to describe the formation of giant planets. One way, which we think is how Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune formed, is via a process called core accretion. A giant planetary core, up to ten times the mass of Earth, forms first out of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. The gravity of the resulting large rocky body is then able to pull in huge swathes of gas in a runaway process from the surrounding planet-forming disk. Given that red dwarfs are scaled down stars, the material available in their planet-forming disk is then similarly scaled down — hence why we find many more smaller planets around red dwarfs than gas giants. Calculations suggest the core of TOI-6894b contains 12 times the mass of Earth. However, in a previous survey of 70 planet-forming disks around red dwarfs with between 15 and 25% the mass of our sun, only five were found to contain more than 12 Earth masses of heavy elements, and only one had an abundance significantly greater than 12 Earth masses. The odds are that TOI-6894b shouldn't have been able to support core accretion. However, Bryant has tried to envisage a process of core accretion by halves. Given that TOI-6894b's overall mass is less than Saturn, a runaway accretion process might not have been required to build up its mass. "Given the mass of the planet, TOI-6894b could have formed through an intermediate core-accretion process, in which a protoplanet forms and steadily accretes gas without the core becoming massive enough for runaway gas accretion," he said. An alternative means by which giant planets form is from a disk instability, whereby a section of a planet-forming disk becomes unstable and collapses under its own gravity, coalescing into a planet. This is a top-down formation process rather than the bottom-up of core accretion, but there is disagreement within the astronomical community over whether such low-mass stars can even experience a disk instability. So, the origin of TOI-6894b remains an open question, but the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) could potentially discover the answer in the planet's atmosphere. TOI-6894b orbits close to its star every 3.37 days at a distance of just 3.89 million kilometers (2.42 million miles). A gas giant so close to a sun-like star would be classed as a "hot Jupiter" with an atmospheric temperature in the high hundreds, if not more than a thousand, degrees Celsius. However, as a red dwarf, TOI-6894 is cooler than our sun by more than 2,500 degrees Celsius, meaning TOI-6894b has an atmospheric temperature of just 147 degrees Celsius (296 degrees Fahrenheit) – still warm, but by no means hot. This has repercussions for the chemistry of its atmosphere. "Based on the stellar irradiation of TOI-6894b, we expect the atmosphere is dominated by methane chemistry, which is very rare to identify," Amaury Triaud of the University of Birmingham said in the statement. "Temperatures are low enough that atmospheric observations could even show us ammonia, which would be the first time it is found in an exoplanet atmosphere." Related Stories: — 'Cosmic miracle!' James Webb Space Telescope discovers the earliest galaxy ever seen — James Webb Space Telescope unveils fiery origins of a distant, hellish exoplanet — Scientists question possible signs of life on exoplanet K2-18b in new study: 'We never saw more than insignificant hints' A proposal to observe TOI-6894b's atmosphere has already been accepted as part of the JWST's fourth cycle of science observations, to take place over the next 12 months. Besides searching for the likes of methane and ammonia, the characteristics of the planet's atmosphere discernible to JWST could point to which formation model – core accretion or disk instability – is the correct one, or even whether a brand new formation model is needed. Although giant planets around red dwarf stars are rare — other examples include the worlds LHS 3154b, GJ 3512b and c, and TZ Ari b — the numbers may still be on their side. That's because red dwarfs are the most common type of star in the galaxy, making up three-quarters of the estimated 100 billion stars in the Milky Way. So even 1.5% of 75 billion is a huge number of red dwarf stars – 1.125 billion to be exact — that could host giant planets. "This discovery will be a cornerstone for understanding the extremes of giant planet formation," concluded Bryant. The discovery of TOI-6894b was published on June 4 in the journal Nature Astronomy.
GMA Network
5 days ago
- Science
- GMA Network
Scientists puzzled by giant planet detected orbiting tiny star
An artist's impression of a newly discovered giant planet named TOI-6894b (top right) orbiting a red dwarf star (center) about 20% the mass of the sun, the image was released on June 4, 2025. University of Warwick/Mark Garlick/Handout via REUTERS WASHINGTON - Astronomers have spotted a cosmic mismatch that has left them perplexed - a really big planet orbiting a really small star. The discovery defies current understanding of how planets form. The star is only about a fifth the mass of the sun. Stars this size should host small planets akin to Earth and Mars under the leading theories on planetary formation. But the one detected in orbit around this star is much larger - in fact, as big as Saturn, the second-largest planet in our solar system. The star, named TOI-6894, is located roughly 240 light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km). It is the smallest-known star to host a large planet, about 40% smaller than the two previous record holders. "The question of how such a small star can host such a large planet is one that this discovery raises - and we are yet to answer," said astronomer Edward Bryant of the University of Warwick in England, lead author of the study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Astronomy. Planets beyond our solar system are called exoplanets. The one orbiting TOI-6894 is a gas giant, like Saturn and Jupiter in our solar system, rather than a rocky planet like Earth. The birth of a planetary system begins with a large cloud of gas and dust - called a molecular cloud - that collapses under its own gravity to form a central star. Leftover material spinning around the star in what is called a protoplanetary disk forms planets. Smaller clouds yield smaller stars, and smaller disks contain less material to form planets. "In small clouds of dust and gas, it's hard to build a giant planet," said exoplanet scientist and study co-author Vincent Van Eylen of University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory. "This is because to build a giant planet, you need to quickly build a large planet core and then quickly accrete (accumulate) a lot of gas on top of that core. But there's only so much time to do it before the star starts shining and the disk rapidly disappears. In small stars, we think there's simply not enough mass available to build a giant planet quickly enough before the disk disappears," Van Eylen added. No known planet is larger than its host star, and that is the case here as well, though the two are much closer in size than usual. While the sun's diameter is 10 times larger than our solar system's largest planet Jupiter, TOI-6894's diameter is just 2.5 times greater than its only known planet. The star is a red dwarf, the smallest type of regular star and the most common kind found in the Milky Way galaxy. "Given these stars are very common, there may be many more giant planets in the galaxy than we thought," Bryant said. The star is about 21% the mass of the sun and much dimmer. In fact, the sun is about 250 times more luminous than TOI-6894. "These findings suggest that even the smallest stars in the universe can in some cases form very large planets. That forces us to rethink some of our planet formation models," Van Eylen said. The planet is located about 40 times closer to its star than Earth is to the sun, completing an orbit in approximately three days. Its proximity to the star means the planet's surface is quite hot, though not as hot as gas giants called "hot Jupiters" detected orbiting similarly close to bigger stars. Its diameter is slightly larger than Saturn and a bit smaller than Jupiter, though it is less dense than them. Its mass is 56% that of Saturn and 17% that of Jupiter. The main data used in studying the planet came from NASA's orbiting Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, and the European Southern Observatory's Chile-based Very Large Telescope, or VLT. The researchers hope to better understand the planet's composition with observations planned over the next year using the James Webb Space Telescope. "We expect it to have a massive core surrounded by a gaseous envelope made up of predominantly hydrogen and helium gas," Bryant said. — Reuters
