• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Thursday, October 2, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Chemistry

Gas giant composition not determined by host star

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
December 3, 2019
in Chemistry
Reading Time: 4 mins read
0
IMAGE
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Unraveling this surprising discrepancy could reveal new details about the planet formation process

IMAGE

Credit: Image is by MarioProtIV, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.


Pasadena, CA– A surprising analysis of the composition of gas giant exoplanets and their host stars shows that there isn’t a strong correlation between their compositions when it comes to elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, according to new work led by Carnegie’s Johanna Teske and published in the Astronomical Journal. This finding has important implications for our understanding of the planetary formation process.

In their youths, stars are surrounded by a rotating disk of gas and dust from which planets are born. Astronomers have long wondered how much a star’s makeup determines the raw material from which planets are constructed–a question that is easier to probe now that we know the galaxy is teeming with exoplanets.

“Understanding the relationship between the chemical composition of a star and its planets could help shed light on the planetary formation process,” Teske explained.

For example, previous research indicated that the occurrence of gas giant planets increases around stars with a higher concentration of heavy elements, those elements other than hydrogen and helium. This is thought to provide evidence for one of the primary competing theories for how planets form, which proposes that gas giant planets are built from the slow accretion of disk material until a core about 10 times Earth’s mass is formed. At this point, the solid baby planetary interior is able to surround itself with helium and hydrogen gas, birthing a mature giant planet.

“Previous work looked at the relationship between the presence of planets and how much iron exists in the host star, but we wanted to expand that to include the heavy element content of the planets themselves, and to look at more than just iron,” explained co-author Daniel Thorngren, who completed much of the work as a graduate student at UC Santa Cruz and is now at the Université de Montréal.

Teske, Thorngren and their colleagues–Jonathan Fortney of UC Santa Cruz, Natalie Hinkel of the Southwest Research Institute, and John Brewer of San Francisco State University–compared the bulk heavy element content of 24 cool, gas giant planets to the abundances of “planet-forming elements” carbon, oxygen, magnesium, silicon, iron, and nickel in their 19 host stars. (Some stars host multiple planets.)

They were surprised to find that there was no correlation between the amount of heavy elements in these giant planets and the amount of these planet-forming elements in their host stars So how can astronomers explain the established trend that stars rich in heavy elements are more likely to host gas giant planets?

“Unraveling this discrepancy could reveal new details about the planet formation process,” explained Fortney. “For example, what other factors are contributing to a baby planet’s composition as it forms? Perhaps its location in the disk and how far it is from any neighbors. More work is necessary to answer these crucial questions.”

One clue may come from the authors’ combined results bundling the heavy elements into groupings that reflect their characteristics. The authors saw a tentative correlation between a planet’s heavy elements and its host star’s relative abundance of carbon and oxygen, which are called volatile elements, versus the rest of the elements included in this study, which fall into the group called refractory elements. These terms refer to the elements’ low boiling points–volatility–or their high melting points–in the case of the refractory elements. Volatile elements may represent an ice-rich planetary composition, whereas refractory elements may indicate a rocky composition.

Teske said: “I’m excited to explore this tentative result further, and hopefully add more information to our understanding of the relationships between star and planetary compositions from upcoming missions like NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which will be able to measure elements in exoplanet atmospheres.”

###

This work was supported by a NASA Hubble Fellowship and a NASA XRP grant.

This research has made use of the NASA Exoplanet Archive, which is operated by the California Institute of Technology, under contract with NASA under the Exoplanet Exploration Program. This work has made use of the VALD database, operated at Uppsala University, the Institute of Astronomy RAS in Moscow, and the University of Vienna. The research shown here acknowledges use of the Hypatia Catalog Database, an online compilation of stellar abundance data as described in Hinkel et al. (2014), which was supported by NASA’s Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS) research coordination network and the Vanderbilt Initiative in Data-Intensive Astrophysics (VIDA).

The Carnegie Institution for Science (carnegiescience.edu) is a private, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with six research departments throughout the U.S. Since its founding in 1902, the Carnegie Institution has been a pioneering force in basic scientific research. Carnegie scientists are leaders in plant biology, developmental biology, astronomy, materials science, global ecology, and Earth and planetary science.

Media Contact
Johanna Teske
[email protected]
626-304-0251

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ab4f79

Tags: AstronomyAstrophysicsPlanets/MoonsSpace/Planetary ScienceStars/The Sun
Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

blank

Palladium Filters Pave the Way for More Affordable, Efficient Hydrogen Fuel Production

October 1, 2025
Revolutionary Organic Molecule Poised to Transform Solar Energy Harvesting

Revolutionary Organic Molecule Poised to Transform Solar Energy Harvesting

October 1, 2025

Innovative Biochar Technology Offers Breakthrough in Soil Remediation and Crop Protection

October 1, 2025

CATNIP Tool Expands Access to Sustainable Chemistry Through Data-Driven Innovation

October 1, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    90 shares
    Share 36 Tweet 23
  • Physicists Develop Visible Time Crystal for the First Time

    74 shares
    Share 30 Tweet 19
  • New Study Indicates Children’s Risk of Long COVID Could Double Following a Second Infection – The Lancet Infectious Diseases

    66 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 17
  • How Donor Human Milk Storage Impacts Gut Health in Preemies

    64 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

New Maps Indicate India May Face the Greatest Impact from Chikungunya

Scientists Say Enhanced Fertility Diagnostics Could Advance Bird Conservation Breeding Programs

Experts Advocate for a Ban on Commercial Sunbeds in the UK

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 60 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.