A recently discovered planet called Halla defies conventional understanding by orbiting a red giant star instead of being engulfed by it. The planet, about the size of Jupiter, is located in the Ursa Minor constellation approximately 520 light-years away from our solar system.
Astronomers have made a perplexing discovery that challenges existing knowledge of planetary formation. They have found a planet named Halla that exists in close proximity to a red giant star called Baekdu, which should have consumed the planet due to its expansion.
Baekdu, observed by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), is in the phase where it is burning helium in its core, indicating that nuclear fusion has already ceased. Normally, a star in this stage would expand to a size 1.5 times the distance of Halla’s orbit and engulf any nearby planets before contracting. Therefore, the fact that Halla still exists near Baekdu is a true enigma, defying all expectations.
According to Marc Hon, a NASA Hubble Fellow at the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy and the lead author of the study published in Nature, Halla’s survival makes it an extraordinary survivor. Hon emphasizes that Halla’s persistence near a giant star that should have destroyed it highlights its resilience.
Discovered in 2015, Halla orbits its sun every 93 Earth-days, maintaining a distance approximately half that of the Earth-Sun distance.
One possibility for Halla’s origin is a violent collision between two stars, resulting in the formation of a gas cloud from which the planet was born.
While the survival of Halla remains mysterious, there are three potential explanations:
- Halla might have initially been on a larger orbit before moving inward (considered highly unlikely).
- Baekdu could have originally consisted of two stars that merged, preventing either from expanding.
- Alternatively, Halla may have formed recently from a dust cloud resulting from the merger of the two stars.
If the latter scenario proves true, Halla would be classified as a “second generation” planet. According to Hon, most stars are part of binary systems, and understanding how planets can form around them is still an ongoing scientific inquiry. He suggests that highly evolved stars involved in binary interactions could potentially harbor more planets than previously thought.
May your skies be clear and your curiosity boundless.
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