Do all exoplanets known as “hot” Jupiters orbit alone in their respective solar systems, as has long been observed? This is what a recent study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics hopes to address as an international team of researchers discovered a gas giant exoplanet orbiting in the same system as a hot Jupiter while validating planetary parameters for a super-Earth, all of which challenges longstanding hypotheses regarding the architecture of solar systems with hot Jupiters. This study has the potential to help astronomers better understand the formation and evolution of solar systems throughout the cosmos, specifically the types of planets that orbit in their systems.
For the study, the researchers used data that was previously collected over a nine-year period from the CORALIE spectrograph and two months of data collected from the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) telescopes, with both being operated European Southern Observatory. In the end, the researchers announced the discovery of a gas giants exoplanet with a 5-year orbital period while determining the mass of a super-Earth (WASP-132c), the latter of which orbits interior to a known hot Jupiter (WASP-132b), with 1-day and 7.1-day orbital periods, respectively.
Artist’s illustration of the WASP-132 system displaying a Hot Jupiter (foreground) and a super-Earth (background, transiting its parent star). A third exoplanet, WASP-132d, was discovered to be orbiting well beyond these two exoplanets (out of image). (Credit: Thibaut Roger/University of Geneva)
What makes this discovery profound is that hot Jupiters have traditionally been observed to orbit alone due to their inner migration ejecting other planetary bodies from the system over time. However, finding a gas giant orbiting distant in the system along with confirming the parameters of a super-Earth that orbits inside the orbit of the hot Jupiter challenges these longstanding notions of exoplanetary system architectures.
‘‘The combination of a Hot Jupiter, an inner Super-Earth and an outer giant planet in the same system provides important constraints on theories of planet formation and in particular their migration processes,’’ said Dr. Ravit Helled, who is a professor in the Department of Astrophysics at the University of Zurich and a co-author on the study. ‘‘WASP-132 demonstrates the diversity and complexity of multi-planetary systems, underlining the need for very long-term, high-precision observations.’’
How many more solar systems with hot Jupiters and super-Earths orbiting together will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Geneva, EurekAlert!
