Indian American Student In Team That Discovers Jupiter-Like planet
WASHINGTON: An international team of astronomers, including an Indian-American PhD student, has discovered a Jupiter like exoplanet outside earth's solar system just a 100 light years away.
Researchers including Rahul I. Patel, a PhD student in Physics & Astronomy Department of Stony Brook University, New York, are calling the exoplanet a "young Jupiter" because it shares many characteristics of Jupiter.
A paper outlining the full findings is published in Science.
The finding could serve as a decoder ring for astronomers to understand how planets formed around the sun as it provides an opportunity to look at younger star systems in the earlier phase of development, according to a media release.
Called 51 Eridani b, the exoplanet is the 'faintest' one on record, and also shows the strongest methane signature ever detected on an alien planet, which should yield additional clues as to how the planet formed.
"We found that 51 Eridani is surrounded by warm dust that indicates the presence of an asteroid belt," said Patel.
"Finding dust around a star is like seeing a large signpost that tells us there might be a planet," he added.
"This is because the dust is usually created when lots of large asteroids collide and destroy each other, usually pushed around by a large planet - like 51 Eridani b."
Patel led NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) to search for any thermal glow that dust and ice grains resulting from collisions among asteroids and comets in the Solar System can produce.
His previous work identifying recycled planetary dust, known as "debris disks," around close to a hundred other star systems, puts the discovery of the exoplanet in context.
In addition to being the faintest planet ever imaged, it's also the coldest - 400 Celsius, whereas others are around 700 °C - and features the strongest atmospheric methane signal on record.
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