A group of Astrophysicists found an enormous young planet which is almost 300 light-years away from Earth, can disclose information about planetary evolution. In the year 2014, an international group of astronomers from United States, Netherlands, and Italy found the planet HD 106906b.
This gigantic planet is even 11 times larger than the largest planet [Jupiter] of the Solar system. In the report of The Astrophysical Journal Letters, researchers mentioned that this extremely planet is not more than 13 million years old. In celestial standard, this age is extremely young, while the solar system is more than 4.6 billion years old.
Lead researcher of the study and the assistant professor of physics and astronomy at University of California(UCLA), Smadar Naoz said,“This is such a young star. we have a snapshot of a baby star that just formed its planetary system, a rare peek at the final stage of planet formation”. Researchers found several unusual characteristics in this planet.
In the solar system, the majority of planets exist inside a vast dusty disk of debris aka Oort Cloud but, HD 106906b lies far beyond its solar system's disk. According to Science Daily, it takes 1,500 years to complete one orbital year for this planet. The distance between HD 106906b and it’s the sun is 650 times farther than the distance between the Sun and planet Earth.
Postdoctoral fellow of the Carnegie Institution for Science Erika Nesvold designed an algorithm named, Superparticle-Method Algorithm for Collisions in Kuiper belts and debris disks(SMACK) to create a model of the planet's orbital path. As HD 106906b is an extremely slow moving planet so it’s nearly impossible to see that the planet is moving.
Nesvold explained that if the algorithm works perfectly then it will help researchers to explain the shape of the debris disk. She also added that if the orbit is elliptical then one side of the orbit will be much closer than the other side. The closer side of the disk is much brighter and warmer than the disk of another side. A team of American and European astronomers first photographed the debris disk in 2016.
Debris disks are usually made of composed of gas, dust, and ice. It also helps to form planets. By using Nesvold's algorithm researchers are planning to search additional planets inside the disk. When a gas cloud collapses due to its own gravity then it starts to take the shape of a planet.
