Scientists have found a planet in the constellation of the Cross, banished to the outskirts of the star – RIA Novosti

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© Photo: Paul Kalas, UC Berkeley

MOSCOW, Dec 2 – RIA Novosti. Planetary scientists have found out in one of the newborn stars in the constellation of the Southern Cross unusual planet that is 16 times farther from the sun than Pluto, and that could be “expelled” from the system of the star, said in a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal.

“It looked whether our solar system is about the same way at the time, when her age was only 13 million years? We knew that our own comet “warehouse”, the Kuiper Belt have lost a huge amount of matter as its evolution, but we have not had a chance to check it. And similar systems where gravitational perturbations throw the entire planet, give us a chance to understand how this happened, “- said Paul Kalas (Paul Kalas) from the University of California at Berkeley (USA).

Kalas and his colleagues found that one of the planets in the newborn star system HD 106906 has been “thrown out” luminary long margin, watching the comet belt surrounding the star, with the help of ground-based Gemini Observatory and the Space Telescope “Hubble”.

star HD 106 906 is relatively close to us, just 300 light-years from Earth, and it is one of sunlike stars that formed recently. Its gas-dust disk in which was born the star and its planet is almost time to dissipate, leaving only thick “donut” of comets, located on the distant outskirts of the system.

© Photo: Paul A. Kempton

Inside This is a donut “hole” with a diameter of 50 astronomical units (the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), whose existence suggests that close from HD 106906 planet formed. However, within the “holes” of the planets do not have – the only known planet of the HD 106906, the gas giant HD 106906b, was opened in 2014 at a record distance of 650 astronomical units from the sun, far beyond the borders of the zone.

By watching the movement of comets, the band Kalas noticed that formed them “bagel” was slanted in one direction and elongated in the direction of HD 106906b, and thinner in one of its parts. This led them to believe that HD 106906b might be, not where it is now revolves around the world, and was ejected from the inner part of a protoplanetary disk in the outskirts of the star system.

© MPIA / V. Ch. Quetz (left)

So far, scientists do not know why or how it happened, but they suggest that the gas giant has become a “pariah” and moved to the outskirts of the star system due to the fact that a number from HD 106906 took another star whose attraction “Shake” protoplanetary disk and destabilized it. Traces of this can be that the orbit of HD 106906b very inclined – about 20 degrees – with respect to the heavenly body, and the belt of comets.

As scientists believe similar upheavals and “shaking” could clean the Kuiper belt of mostly comets and protoplanetary bodies, which it is now within considerably less than the theory predicts. Kalas and his colleagues plan to continue observations of HD 106906 and other such luminaries in the hope to reveal new secrets of the birth of the solar system.