Giant Planet Nine Times the Mass of Jupiter Found

cremeglace writes "In the late 1990s, astronomers noticed a distinct warp in the disk of dust and gas orbiting a young star some 60 light-years from Earth. Now, using new analytical tools, researchers have discovered a giant planet lurking within the dusty haze. About nine times as massive as Jupiter and composed mainly of gas, the planet is only a few million years old, proving that such enormous planetary bodies can form rapidly." What's amazing about this is that the images taken of the star clearly show the planet first on one side of the star, and then the other, several years later.

Comments

Amazing

[x_IamSpartacus_x]

Ok, IANAA (*not an astronomer) but what's amazing about the planet on one side of the star and then the other several years later? Don't most planets orbit stars at varying rates ("years" to us earthlings)? I'm confused by the fact that it's amazing for a large planet to be orbiting its star.

Re:Amazing

[Chris Burke]

They were suggesting that it's amazing that our images clearly show it.

Not that it happens.

Re:Amazing

[MozeeToby]

What's amazing isn't that the planet is orbiting it's parent star, it's the technology to take a picture of the planet and be able to see it moving over time. Most extrasolar planets aren't detected this way, they usually use either Doppler shift or reduction in brightness to detect the existence of a planet and extrapolate from there. There's only a handful of examples of optically sighted extrasolar planets, and this is the first I've heard of having two pictures of the same system, both with the planet visible.

Not only is that 'cool' but it allows us to start cataloging planets that orbit their stars on a plane perpendicular to the direction we are viewing them. Previously, a planet had to conveniently be orbiting such that we were looking into the system edge on. The real excitement will come when we can view terrestrial planets this way with enough resolution to perform spectrographic analysis on the atmosphere and search for, among other things, sings of life.

Mass isn't the story

[The Bad Astronomer]

FWIW, mass isn't the story here; we know of hundreds of planets in that mass range. I would say the story is that two images taken a few years apart show the planet's motion, and that Beta Pic, the parent star, was the first to have a disk seen around it back in the 1980s. This planet explains the warp and other features in the disk, too, that have been known for years! I wrote about this on my Bad Astronomy blog.

Re:Mass isn't the story

[Chris Burke]

You need about 75 Jupiter masses to get sustainable stellar fusion, ignoring questions of composition.

Re:Mass isn't the story

[mhollis]

Posted to my Facebook Page.

This is really cool -- and good info about what it takes to make an actual star in the comments that follow the parent. Sometimes Astronomy means observations over years and years.

Good job, Phil!

Labels and Definitions

[DarthVain]

The universe is a pretty big place, or so I have been told. Undoubtedly if you look long enough you will find entities that challenge your preconceived label or definition of what something "IS". In a universal sense, everything is in flux, so all we are really doing is classification of temporal slices that we can deal with in our limited capacity. At exactly what point does a X become a Y? Considering the time frame being measured is so long, and our perspective so short, it becomes a point of debate, depending on what you call one thing in terms of the other.

Re:Labels and Definitions

[Anne_Nonymous]

>> you will find entities that challenge your preconceived label or definition of what something "IS"

Yeah, I read the headline as Giant Panda Nine Times the Mass of Jupiter Found, and thought, "Well, who am I to judge?".

Re:Not a star now?

[Trepidity]

The cutoff seems to be somewhat higher, at around 13 times the mass of Jupiter.

Re:Not a star now?

[MozeeToby]

So to summarize:

If it shines it's a star.
Else if the mass is greater than the theoretical minimum for fusion (13 Jupiter masses), it is a brown dwarf.
Else if the mass orbits a star or stellar remnant it is a planet
Else it is a 'sub-brown dwarf'

Re:It's a trap!

[stonefry]

Great, they rebuilt the Death Star a second time and now we found it.

Come on, that was a long time ago. And really far away.

Re:Prepare the Armada

[element-o.p.]

As soon as we detect the presence of oil on the planet :D

Re:Not a star now?

[geekoid]

the moon is a star?

Re:Nine Times the Mass of Jupiter?

[Hognoxious]

You think that's mean? I'm from Pluto, you insensitive clod!