Scientists have discovered a giant planet orbiting a tiny red dwarf star, something they believed wasn t even possible. The planet, TOI-6894b, is about the size of Saturn but orbits a star just a fifth the mass of our Sun. This challenges long-standing ideas about how big planets form, especially around small stars. Current theories can't fully explain how such a planet could have taken shape. Even more fascinating, this cold planet may have a rare kind of atmosphere rich in methane or even ammonia something we've never seen in an exoplanet before.

Scientists have discovered a giant planet orbiting a tiny red dwarf star, something they believed wasn t even possible. The planet, TOI-6894b, is about the size of Saturn but orbits a star just a fifth the mass of our Sun. This challenges long-standing ideas about how big planets form, especially around small stars.

  • @SolidShake@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6•6 days ago

    I’m not super smart by any means… But maybe scientists could be wrong on gravity well a red dwarf star could make?

        • Rhaedas
          5•6 days ago

          Possible, measuring the orbit will determine that likelihood. The article gives a few other formation possibilities as well. Finding a few other systems like this will help narrow down what exactly happened here. It doesn’t seem that impossible to me, not like the title implies, given that while the star is low mass for a star, it’s still a large mass, and the planet isn’t that huge (50% less mass than Saturn despite being a bit larger in size).

          This just sounds like an extension of our understanding of how things are in the universe similar to pre-Voyager thoughts on what they’d find from our own system’s planets and moons. What we found was each place was unique with its own fascinating discoveries and not “just another rock”. Seems we’re finding that out for other solar systems as well.

    • don
      English
      8•6 days ago

      Of course they could be wrong. Scientists being human frequently are, until scientific rigor proves them to be correct.

      • @8uurg@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2•5 days ago

        We rarely prove something correct. In mathematics, logical proofs are a thing, but in astronomy and physics it is moreso the case that we usually have a model that is accurate enough for our predictions, until we find evidence to the contrary, like here, and have an opportunity to learn and improve.

        You really can’t ever prove a lot of things to be correct: you would have to show that no more cases exist that are not covered. But even despite the lack of proven correctness for all cases, these models are useful and provide correct predictions (most of the time), science is constantly on the lookout for cases where the model is wrong or incorrect.