Newly found hellish world dubbed ‘The Forbidden Planet’ would melt a human in under a second
A NEW planet the size of Neptune that could vaporise you in under a second has amazed scientists because it shouldn’t exist.
The exoplanet has been found in an area called the “Neptunian Desert”, where no Neptune sized planets are supposed to be able to survive due to the intense radiation.
Neptune is almost four times bigger than Earth and the fourth largest planet in our Solar System so scientists were very surprised that an exoplanet of this size could go unnoticed and exist in such harsh conditions.
Leader of the research Dr Richard West, from the the University of Warwick, explained: “This planet must be tough, it is right in the zone where we expected Neptune-sized planets could not survive.
“It is truly remarkable that we found a transiting planet via a star dimming by less than 0.2%, this has never been done before by telescopes on the ground, and it was great to find after working on this project for a year.
“We are now scouring out data to see if we can see any more planets in the Neptune Desert, perhaps the desert is greener than was once thought.”
Researchers now think that the planet, officially called NGTS-4b, may have moved into the zone fairly recently in Space terms or may have once been an even bigger planet that is still evaporating due to the radiation in the Neptunian Desert.
The phrase Neptunian Desert describes an area close to stars where large planets with their own atmospheres are not expected to survive very long as the star radiation can evaporate the gaseous atmospheres of these planets until nothing is left but rock.
The newly discovered exoplanet has now been dubbed ‘ The Forbidden Planet’ and it is 20 times the mass of Earth, has a radius that is 2% smaller than that of Neptune and is 1000 degrees Celsius.
When researchers look for new planets like this one they normally use a telescope to spot dips in star brightness, which could mean that a planet is orbiting a star.
They normally require dips of 1% in star brightness to find a planet but managed to find NGTS-4b using the NGTS telescope after the planet dimmed the star it orbits by only 0.2%.
Similar techniques could now be used to discover more mysterious planets in the future.
What is an exo-planet?
Here's what you need to know...
- An exoplanet is a planet that is located outside of our Solar System and one that is orbitting its own star, like how Earth orbits the Sun
- They are very hard to see with telescopes because they are often hidden by the brightness of their star
- Nasa sent the Kepler space telescope into orbit with the purpose of finding Earth sized exoplanets that might support life
- Over 4,000 exoplanets have been discovered so far and more missions to find even more exoplanets are planned
- A good way to spot an exoplanet is to look for “wobbly” stars because a disruption to star light can indicate that a planet is orbitting it and therefore blocking out light on occasion
- Expoplanets are very common in the Universe and the more we find that look like Earth the closer we get to knowing if we’re not alone out there
In other Space news, Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites could ‘blot out the night sky’ and ruin stargazing, experts warn.
Scientists have discovered 18 hidden ‘Earth-sized planets’ lurking outside our Solar System and one of them ‘offers hope for life’.
And, a bizarre plot to move Earth by ‘slingshotting asteroids’ at us could prevent fiery apocalypse.
What do you think of ‘The Forbidden Planet’? Let us know in the comments…
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