These Giant Planets Shouldn⁘t Exist. But They Do

What do you do when you encounter a strange astronomical event, a collection of data from planets thousands of light-years away, and models that can't quite explain what you're seeing? For one astronomer at Northern Arizona University's Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science, the answer is simple: start building better models.

With funding from the National Science Foundation and collaboration with co-investigators at Indiana University Bloomington, he is leading a three-year study on the origins of eccentric warm Jupiters -- gas giants outside our solar system that follow unusually stretched orbits. By the time the research concludes in 2028, the team aims to develop a deeper theoretical understanding of how these unusual planets formed, and whether the same forces could have shaped our own solar system.

⁘The variability of extrasolar planets is just enormous,⁘ Mu⁘oz said. ⁘Extrasolar systems can look like our solar system, but in some cases, they look entirely different and exotic. We're very interested in seeing how the solar system forms in context by understanding systems that look like ours and ones that look completely different.

We can get a sense of what the extremes are, how average our planet formation history is and how average our solar system is.⁘ Among these extreme planetary systems, the eccentric warm Jupiters stand out as some of the most fascinating. To explore this mystery, the researcher is developing a new and expanding catalog of eccentric warm Jupiters using data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). These discoveries will serve as the foundation for both updated and entirely new models that could finally reveal how these strange worlds came to be.
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