'Young Jupiter' Planet Found News: New alien planet labeled as the 'Young Jupiter'
Just recently, news broke out that a new world outside our solar system was discovered. What made it more fascinating for scientists is its uncanny resemblance to our solar system's own Jupiter.
According to How It Works Daily, this new planet, named 51 Eridani b, is around 600 times bigger than Earth and has a temperature averaging of 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit (650 degrees Celsius). Its atmosphere is also composed of water and methane, much like of Jupiter's. The planet is quite young in astronomical terms, being only 20 million years old, and its development can further shed light on whether Jupiter was formed in the same way. Two theories have been prominent on how gas planets are formed. First is when materials rapidly combine into a hot, mixed ball of gas and solid material, then quick formation of the planet follows. Jupiter, on the other hand, is believed to have followed the second theory that gaseous outer layers were trapped as the rocky cores gradually built up, which completed the formation.
Daily Galaxy reports that Bruce Mcintosh of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) at Stanford University said at in interview, "51 Eridani b is so young, it actually 'remembers' its formation in some sense. The conditions of whatever process made it haven't been erased by time. Its temperature, size, and mass depend on whether it forms in the way we think Jupiter formed in a slow, step-by-step process, or maybe through some much faster, sudden collapse process that's very different. We can't really say which of those is true right now, but as we study it more, we will be able to."
Get Our Latest News for FREE
51 Eridani b was discovered using the 8-meter Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) in Chile. Coincidentally, this machine can also measure the large quantities of methan in its atmosphere. Being twice the size of Jupiter, the new exoplanet may come off as huge; however, it is actually the smallest to be discovered compared to previous ones that are up to 5 times Jupiter's mass.
