They discovered the most extensive planetary system – one trillion km – Urania – Progress of Astronomy

discovered the most extensive planetary system. Planet 2MASS J2126 is one trillion kilometers from its star, which is 7,000 times farther from the Sun than the Earth. Until now it was thought that the object 2MASS J2126 is freely moving planet, but a recent study Anglo-American-Australian team suggests that we are dealing with the planetary system.

Until now it was thought that the object 2MASS J21265040 -8140293 (in short 2MASS J2126-8140 or 2MASS J2126) belongs to the category of freely-moving planets, and there is no gravitational connection with any star. The latest results of research conducted by scientists from the UK, US and Australia suggest that this object is arranged together with the star TYC 9486-927-1.

Object 2MASS J2126 was discovered on images taken in infrared light. In 2014, astronomers from Canada found that may be a member of a group of stars and brown dwarfs, called association Tukana-clock. This association has no age estimated at 45 million years, which made it possible to estimate the mass of 2MASS J2126 and found out that the body has a relatively small weight in order to pass them categories of freely moving planets.

Near the sky is young star TYC 9486-927-1 that does not belong to the association Tukana-clock, nor to any other young clusters of stars. Interested is a British-American-Australian team, which is headed by Niall Deacon of the University of Hertfordshire (UK). Researchers from several years engaged in the search for young stars that are associated with objects in the very distant orbits.

It turned out that the couple TYC 9486-927-1 and 2MASS J2126 can be connected to each other by gravity, since both objects move in space in the same direction and both includes 104 light years from Earth.

In addition, scientists have ruled that the star TYC 9486-927-1 belongs to the association Tukana-clock, because it has more lithium than the stars of the association. Lithium is an element that fairly quickly is destroyed in stars, so you can based on the intensity of lines in the spectrum of lithium tell if a star is young. So if TYC 9486-927-1 has less lithium it is younger than the stars of association. Further research showed that in turn more lithium than stars with the age of 10 million years. This allows you to determine her age to range from 10 to 45 million years.

With such a range of ages and assuming that 2MASS J2126 also has a similar age, you can determine its mass to from 11.6 to 15 Jupiter masses. This value is on the border between mami planets and brown dwarfs. In the original scientific paper object is described as a potential planet, and in a press release of the British Royal Astronomical Society was allowed yourself to greater certainty and naming a pair of TYC 9486-927-1 and 2MASS J2126 planetary system.

2MASS J2126 circulates up 7000 times farther from its star than the Earth is from the sun. That’s about one trillion kilometers, we deal with the most extensive planetary system as we know it. The potential planet

2MASS J2126 needs almost 900,000 years to make a complete circuit of its orbit around the star. This means that during its lifetime circled star in less than 50 times.

The study is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS).

In the photo:
Photo Infrared (artificial color), showing objects and the TYC 9486-927-1 2MASS J2126. Arrows indicate their movement in space. Source: 2MASS / S. Murphy / ANU.