00:00This planet, yeah, the one right here, shouldn't exist, but it does!
00:05A newly discovered planet rotates around a star that's much smaller and dimmer than
00:09our Sun.
00:10The planet, however, is enormous.
00:13Such a tiny star couldn't create it, so it's like finding an ostrich egg in a chicken
00:18coop.
00:19A team at Penn State built a special tool called the Habitable Zone Planet Finder.
00:25It's an instrument that's supposed to find planets around dim, cool stars.
00:30It's connected to a big telescope in Texas.
00:32The tool looks at the light from these stars, which is mostly in the near-infrared, beyond
00:37what our eyes can see.
00:39This gadget can spot changes in a star's speed caused by a planet.
00:43If the star movement slightly changes, that means there must be a gravitational pull nearby.
00:48Years ago, this technique helped find the first known exoplanet around a star like our
00:53Sun.
00:54And today, we've improved this method to make more precise measurements.
00:58Our main goal is to find Earth-like planets.
01:00They should be rocky and located in habitable zones – areas around stars where liquid
01:05water could exist.
01:07The Doppler technique isn't that great at finding Earth-like worlds yet, but works well
01:11for cool, dim stars.
01:13And that's how we discovered the impossible LHS 3154 b.
01:21Particles usually form in disks made of gas and dust in space.
01:25Picture a flat, spinning cloud of tiny particles.
01:29These particles come together and stick to each other, creating a flat, rotating disk.
01:34Over time, these tiny bits combine to form a solid core.
01:38This is the starting point for a planet.
01:41Once the core is there, it attracts more dust and even gas like hydrogen and helium.
01:46But making a planet this way isn't easy.
01:48They need a lot of stuff, mass, and materials.
01:52This process is called core accretion.
01:55Stars are a huge help in that process.
01:58Usually big stars have more gravity, so they can gather more stuff to form planets.
02:03But the star we discovered recently isn't very big.
02:06It's 9 times smaller than our Sun.
02:09A star this small shouldn't have a big enough disk to make a heavy planet.
02:13To do that, its disk should've been at least 10 times bigger.
02:17But this heavy planet, LHS 3154 b, exists.
02:24Now this mysterious planet is 13 times heavier than our Earth.
02:27It's similar in size to Neptune.
02:29It's about 50 light-years away from us in the Hercules constellation, which, in space
02:34terms, is very close.
02:36The planet is also super close to its star, completing one year in almost 4 days.
02:43This discovery is making scientists rethink their ideas about how planets and stars come
02:47into existence.
02:49There are new theories coming around.
02:51For example, a theory called gravitational instability.
02:55It says that, instead of the pieces coming together bit by bit, the material in the disk
03:00collapses all at once, directly creating a planet.
03:04But even with this theory, it's hard to explain how such a heavy planet could form
03:09without a really massive disk.
03:11It'll take us some time to figure out the truth.
03:16This isn't the first planet that makes us doubt our theories.
03:19Recently, scientists found another planet called Hala.
03:22This planet is orbiting a star called Beidou, and just like the previous one, it shouldn't
03:27really exist.
03:28It's way too close to its star.
03:31Stars change a lot during their lives.
03:33Normally, when a star becomes big and prepares to leave this world, it's called the red
03:37giant stage.
03:39A star like that tends to destroy or push away any nearby planets, creating a huge mess.
03:45Hala rotates around a red giant, and it should've been swallowed or destroyed by the expanding
03:50star a long time ago.
03:53But it's still hanging there.
03:55Even though Beidou has already started burning helium and shrunk to a smaller size than expected,
04:00Hala isn't bothered in the slightest.
04:03Scientists called Hala the forbidden planet.
04:06This discovery challenges what we thought about how planets survive near aging stars.
04:11It raises two theories.
04:13One suggests that Beidou was once two stars, a white dwarf and a red giant.
04:19Hala orbited them both, and they merged before the red giant fully expanded.
04:24This allowed Hala to survive because the extra helium from the white dwarf prevented the
04:28red giant from growing too much.
04:31The second theory says that Hala formed from the debris created when the two stars merged.
04:36In this scenario, Hala would be a very young planet orbiting an elderly star.
04:42Astronomers plan to continue studying Hala and look for more planets like that.
04:49Another oddball, besides me, is called LTT 9779b.
04:54This one scares us too because it's too shiny.
04:58The planet reflects 80% of the light from its star.
05:01Regular mirrors reflect from 85 to almost 100% of light, which means that this mysterious
05:07planet should look like a rough mirror with aluminum or silver-like reflections.
05:12This is another Neptune-sized planet.
05:15It's located 268 light-years from us and was discovered by NASA's TESS spacecraft.
05:21It completes a full rotation around its star in just 19 hours.
05:26It's so close to its star that it's scorching hot, reaching temperatures over 3,600 degrees
05:31Fahrenheit.
05:32Normally, planets this close lose their atmosphere and turn into bare rocks, but this one breaks
05:38the rules again.
05:42Now this time, we know the secret of its survival.
05:45It's because of the planet's shiny metallic clouds, which are made of glass and titanium
05:50salt.
05:51These clouds rain titanium onto its hot surface.
05:54They also reflect a lot of the light, preventing the planet from getting too hot and losing
05:59its atmosphere.
06:00It's like having a mirror shield.
06:02This planet's size also surprised scientists.
06:05It's way bigger than Earth.
06:07Other planets this close to their stars are either much bigger gas giants or small rocky
06:13planets.
06:14This planet is a smaller gas giant, and scientists didn't expect it to exist so close to its
06:19star.
06:20Venus is the shiniest planet ever found, even shinier than Venus.
06:24But despite its cool appearance, it's probably not a friendly place for light because of
06:29its extreme temperatures and strange metallic rain.
06:36And our final rule-breaker is a planet called WASP-107b.
06:41Scientists discovered it using the James Webb Space Telescope.
06:44It's located around 208 light-years from us in the Virgo constellation.
06:49It's also fast and completes an orbit around its star in just 6 days.
06:55This is a super-Neptune exoplanet.
06:58It's similar to Jupiter in some ways, including the same size and scorching hot temperatures.
07:03But the main difference is that it's much lighter, weaker, and less dense.
07:07This is the least dense planet we've discovered so far.
07:10After researching some more, we also found that it has a tail.
07:15The helium on the planet extends beyond the transit egress.
07:19The planet is slowly losing its atmosphere due to extreme ultraviolet radiation from
07:23the star.
07:25This creates a comet-like tail.
07:27So it looks like a fluffy comet.
07:32But that was just the beginning.
07:34The planet's low density, or fluffiness, allowed astronomers to study its atmosphere
07:39in detail.
07:40They found some surprising things, like water vapor and clouds made of fine silicate particles,
07:46which are like really fine-grained sand.
07:49The planet's host star doesn't emit a lot of high-energy light.
07:52But since WASP-107b is so loose, the light can penetrate deep into its atmosphere.
07:59This creates sulfur dioxide, that smell when you light a match.
08:03In other words, it's a fluffy planet that rains sand and smells like matches.
08:08The researchers think the sand clouds in the atmosphere form in a similar way to clouds
08:12on Earth.
08:13They just have droplets of sand instead of water.
08:16These sand droplets condense, fall, turn into silicate vapor in hot layers within the planet,
08:22and then rise again to form clouds once more.
08:26And once again, this planet couldn't have formed in its current spot.
08:30Astronomers say that it likely moved closer to its star from a birth orbit because it
08:34was attracted by some heavier neighbor.
08:37It also follows a retrograde orbit, meaning it orbits in the opposite direction to its
08:42star's rotation.
08:44All these discoveries are changing how we understand planets and their atmospheres,
08:48giving us new insights into the mysteries of our own solar system.
08:53That's it for today!
08:54So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your
08:59friends!
09:00Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!
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