Scientists Spot A ‘Zombie Planet’ That Shouldn’t Exist

Typically, planets face catastrophe when their stars reach the end of their lives and engulf them. For example, when our Sun dies, it will expand to 100 times its current size and swallow the Earth.

New Delhi: Scientists have claimed to have discovered a new planet that, according to them, shouldn’t exist. This planet, similar to Jupiter, is located 520 light-years away from Earth and has miraculously survived the violent death of its star.

Death Of A Star

Typically, planets face catastrophe when their stars reach the end of their lives and engulf them. For example, when our Sun dies, it will expand to 100 times its current size and swallow the Earth. However, a new study suggests that some planets have a chance of survival. Astronomers have found a planet named ‘Halla,’ resembling Jupiter, that managed to survive the death of its star called ‘Baekdu.’

Astronomers made an intriguing discovery when they detected the planet and conducted further observations. It was found that Baekdu had previously expanded into a red giant, reaching a size approximately 1.5 times the distance between itself and Halla. During this phase, the red giant stage engulfed Halla before eventually contracting back to its present size.

Halla Miraculously Survived

Despite the catastrophic event, Halla has defied the odds and survived, astonishing the astronomers who observed it through a telescope in Hawaii. This gas planet, officially named 8 UMi b, was given the name Halla after its discovery in 2015 by Korean astronomers. The name Halla represents a sacred place and is the highest mountain in South Korea.

“Planetary engulfment has catastrophic consequences for either the planet or the star itself – or both. The fact that Halla has managed to persist in the immediate vicinity of a giant star that would have otherwise engulfed it highlights the planet as an extraordinary survivor,” The Independent quoted Marc Hon, the lead author of the study.

These findings were published in a new paper – ‘A close-in giant planet escapes engulfment by its star’, in the journal Nature Today.

Notably, scientists made the discovery of Halla in 2015 utilising the “radial velocity method,” a technique that tracks the movement of stars to deduce the gravitational influence of orbiting planets. Over the subsequent years, researchers determined that the planet had been engulfed by the star and subsequently carried out follow-up observations to gain deeper insights into this phenomenon.

The observations confirm that Halla really exists and had been revolving in its orbit for more than 10 years but the question still there that how the planet actually survived.

Scientists Don’t Know The Reason Behind The Survival Of Halla

However, the scientists don’t know the reason behind the survival of Halla. A possibility is that the planet started on a larger orbit before moving closer to its star, but astronomers believe that is unlikely.

One possibility is that Baekdu consisted of two stars that merged during their dying process. This merger could have prevented Halla from being engulfed because it stopped the stars from growing large enough to consume it.

Another possibility is that Halla was formed as a result of the collision between the two stars. This collision may have generated a cloud of gas that eventually gave birth to Halla. Therefore, Halla might be the outcome of its star’s demise rather than a survivor of it.