“There had been more than one effort looking for extraterrestrial partners that had taken a close look at this star. In contrast, the previous teams appeared to be extremely cohesive and close to the star “Backyard Worlds: Planet 9’s co-founder and lead author, Dr. Jackie Faherty, is an astrophysics professor at the American Museum of Natural History and the co-founder of the citizen science project that led to this object’s discovery. They uncovered an item that many direct imaging surveys would have hoped to find, but did not explore far enough away from its host since citizen scientists really appreciated the initiative.”
As part of NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) program, the Backyard Worlds project allows people browse through over five years worth of digital photographs obtained by the WISE spacecraft. Similar to a flipbook, if an object near Earth is moving, it appears to “jump” around the same area of the sky over time. Those objects can then be flagged by scientists for further investigation by the user
During the 2018 Backyard Worlds competition, German participant Jörg Schümann notified scientists to a new co-moving system: an item that looked to move with a star. Researchers confirmed the system’s motion using telescopes in California and Hawaii and were astounded by what they discovered.
Despite its early age, the new object has a relatively low mass: between 10 and 20 times Jupiter’s mass. There is an essential cutoff point — 13 times Jupiter’s mass — where planets and brown dwarfs may be distinguished. However, because scientists are unsure of the maximum weight that planets can have, it may be difficult to rely on this limit. There is a lack of consensus on what constitutes a planet, according to Faherty.
Brown dwarfs, on the other hand, are produced when massive clouds of gas collapse around a star, just like planets do. This is a key difference between brown dwarfs and planets. A look at its physical features does not reveal anything about its origin. “A possible exoplanet has been suggested, but no definitive evidence has been found. But this is an exception, not the rule “Faherty chimed in.
In terms of how the new object relates to its host star, the team was taken by surprise. The object is more than 1,600 times further away from the star than expected given its mass in comparison to the Sun. Few celestial bodies have been located so far apart with such vastly differing masses from their home star.
To comprehend the origins of life in the universe, scientists may benefit from this discovery by learning more about how solar systems form. In Faherty’s words, “You had an exoplanet community just staring so close to it,” “A little bit of digging brought us to an object. As a result of this, I am eager to learn more about the planets that may exist around these stars “Faherty chimed in. It is sometimes necessary to expand your horizons.
