A team of international scientists recently published the discovery of nine new hot Jupiter exoplanets in The Astronomical Journal that could help scientists better understand the formation and evolution of exoplanets throughout the cosmos. This study comes as the number of confirmed exoplanets by NASA recently exceeded 5,900 and continues to grow almost daily. Given their extremely small orbits and searing temperatures, hot Jupiters might not have life as we know it, but their discovery further enhances our understanding of their formation and evolution.
For the study, the researchers used a combination of data from the Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP) survey and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission to confirm the existence of WASP-102 b, WASP-116 b, WASP-149 b WASP-154 b, WASP-155 b, WASP-188 b, WASP-194 b/HAT-P-71 b, WASP-195 b, and WASP-197 b. Each of these exoplanets have radii that range between 0.9 and 1.4 Jupiters, masses of 0.1 and 1.5 Jupiters, and orbit between 1.3 and 6.6 days from their parent stars, which are classified as FGK stars. For context, our Sun is a G-type star. While radius, mass, and orbital period were successfully estimated, the researchers note much more data still needs to be acquired to better understand these exoplanets.
The study notes, “The eccentricity of the hot Jupiter population has important implications on the dominant formation mechanism. While hot Jupiters with periods less than 3 days show mostly circular orbits, moderate eccentricities are observed in some giant planets in orbits between 3 and 10 days. We do not find strong support for eccentricity for any of the planets we fit here, and therefore we fix all eccentricities to 0 in our model. However, it is possible that additional RV monitoring could provide more refined measurements on the eccentricities.”
As noted, hot Jupiters are too potentially hot to have life as we know it, but their existence challenges our understanding of planetary formation and evolution, as these types of exoplanets don’t exist within our solar system. Therefore, discovering new hot Jupiters continues to teach scientists about our universe and our place in it.
How many more Jupiter-sized exoplanets will researchers discover 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: The Astronomical Journal
Featured Image Credit: European Southern Observatory/M. Kornmesser
