According to the latest study, astronomers found an exoplanet so rare that they believed it the Forbidden Planet. The founded planet technically recognized as NGTS-4b and it is three times bigger than the size of Earth whereas it is twenty percent smaller than Neptune. On the other hand, it is hotter than the planet Mercury has a temperature of 1,832°F. In addition, the planet covered with its own atmosphere.
With the help of the Next-Generation Transit Survey observing facility, the international team of astronomer’s spot the small rogue planet. The mass of the planet is about the 20 times to the mass of the Earth as well as it whips about its star in a complete orbit every 1.3 days. The announcement of the Forbidden Planet comes two weeks back in the discovery of eighteen Earth-sized exoplanets.
The founders stated that in the Neptunian Desert, it is the first ever exoplanet like it to discover. It should be clear that the region is not a barren region of the Neptune gaseous planet. However, it is a region which is very close to the stars where it is challenging to discover the Neptune-sized planets. Planets blasted along with radiation from stars here due to which planets are unable to keep their gaseous atmosphere. They evaporate, and after that, just the rocky core left behind.
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Furthermore, NGTS-4b has its own gaseous atmosphere. It is a belief of the astronomers that might the planet moved into this particular region during the last million years or might the planet itself was bigger once, and its atmosphere is in the evaporating process.
Richard West Statement
The principal research fellow and study author in the Physics department of the University of Warwick, Richard West stated that the discovered planet must be tough and it is precisely in that zone where they estimated Neptune-sized planets could not able to survive. Amazingly, his team found a transiting planet through a star dimming with less than 0.2 percent. Moreover, on the ground, it never did before with telescopes, and he said that it was fantastic to discover after working on this project for about one year.
This discovery opens the doors for a new search for further planets and missions such as NASA’s planet-hunter TESS will able to explore the additional region. West added that now they are scouring out figures to explore if they can find more planets in the Neptune Desert.
