I love how new discoveries keep challenging the theories we currently have. Show how little is known about the space and how much we have yet to learn.

Oh yeah? Who's going to stop me from going there?

Ah yes. This must be in the Mutara Nebula. Take permits many.

Wouldn’t this be expected? X mass condensed to a ball makes a y mass star or two objects with y mass.

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Space and time might have a word, and if not, then gravity will have the ultimate say (the radiation environment is also very likely highly disagreeable).

I mean, aren't gas giants just "failed" stars that never got big enough? Why is this so rare if binary star systems aren't?

Edit: notice how my comment is in the form of 2 questions and not statements? It's because I don't know what I'm talking about. I didn't think the words "failed star" would rile everyone up so much. I'm sorry to have upset everyone and I hope I can be forgiven.

So you're saying there's a chance

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I'm only surprised it's taken them this long to find something like this.

The tiny star: It's cold in space! There was shrinkage!

So judgemental. Aspiring star is fair enough. We're all working on getting somewhere.

Rare in that we haven't processed that many exoplanets relative to the number of stars we've been able to chart, and haven't seen this kind of pair yet with the exoplanets we have found.

Honestly, I roll my eyes at these kinds of descriptions as sensationalized garbage.

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You can’t tell me what to do! You’re not my Mom! stomps away, slams bedroom door

Part of me is happy that there's space news. Part of me is disgusted at the current state of quality in news in general. We're right next to the rack of tabloids declaring batboy was found on Gliese 581c.

I should start paying for a newspaper again or something.

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We know so little about these Superstructures.

Quick, send for Emmerich!

Which is probably why it was discovered in the first place

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So "size" in this context means radius of the star vs. planet, not the mass, area, or volume.

I think calling it "forbidden" is very hyperbolic. It's at the extreme end of what we know, but it's not unreasonable for it to form as such under current planet formation theories given reasonable uncertainties and variability.

I don't like calling gas giant "failed stars". There are two ways to define a planet (at the high mass end; edit: 3 ways, see lower comment):

1. If it formed from core accretion in a disk, it's a planet. (Conversely, if it formed from disk instability and gravitational collapse, it's not a planet.)
2. If it's under the mass required to fuse deuterium (~13 Jupiter masses), it's a planet.

Both definitions have pros and cons. Since we typically think of gas giants as planets that formed via core accretion, I wouldn't call any of them "failed stars" since they form completely differently than actual stars.

However, if a nominal gas giant formed via disk instability/gravitational collapse, but doesn't burn regular hydrogen, then "failed star" is appropriate.

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The Forbidden planet, in the system of doom, in the galaxy of no return.

Sounds nice.

A very real chance. Forget the statistics, thats for mathematicians and they never space travel.

Oh you'll get there. Just not in a living state.

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They found Batboy?!?!

r/unexpectedfuturama is leaking.

What does this refute?

Oh sweet! You can join me on my trip. I'm taking my mineral collection and we can make petri dishes out of our armpit sweat. I've already got over 378 petri dishes going and I can't wait to see how yours compares to mine.

Once we get there, I'm going to set up my speaker system and play tibetan throat music while I mediate out loud.

I think we'll have the best of time, especially since it'll be just the two of us.

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I just hope there's a robot that can make booze.

Is there any more proof needed that science.com can't be taken seriously with these headlines and articles saying "forbidden" and "should not exist"? Tabloid trash.

It's brown dwarfs specifically that are failed stars.

so how is "a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting a tiny star that is only four times the size of the solar system gas giant." and "The extrasolar planet, or "exoplanet," orbits a red dwarf " newsworthy?

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It's easy. 50/50. He either goes or he doesn't.

He enlisted to serve last i heard on the Weekly World News

Is it Furia?

Riddick: "It's not hard to hide on a planet if it takes you 300 years to drive around the equator."

“Though on average this class of stars hosts more planets around them than other star types, it was previously believed that their formation makes them unlikely to be orbited by gas giants. The discovery of this exoplanet  —  designated TOI 5205b  —  by astronomers using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) telescope challenges that concept.”

Probably something about how stars need mass for something to orbit it or something. I'm not a expert.

Every astronomy enthusiast gets mad when you call gas giants a failed star. That's like saying an asteroid is a failed planet. It is what it is and has an important place in our universe.

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Can I buy in? This sounds like a stellar weekend

I was going to say, white dwarf stars are very small (on the scale of space) but still have a good portion of their prior mass. It's very reasonable to assume that a planet could form around it, even if improbable.

Brown Dwarfs are essentially high mass gas giants though. That's the issue, we don't have enough knowledge about them and the limit to which they transition to stars to properly classify them better. They are difficult to find and observe because they don't shine bright comparatively and we only have hypothetical limits to what mass is necessary to ignite.

But yes, lower end mass gas giants like what is in our solar system are definitely not close enough to be considered failed stars in any regard.

But even so, the definition of brown dwarf isn't necessarily set in stone. It definitely can't fuse normal hydrogen, but do you define the lower limit by the physical process, by formation mechanism, or by observational feasibility?

• Physical process: must be fusing deuterium? It's a nice physical process to define by. However, it's basically impossible to tell observationally whether a (potential) brown dwarf is burning deuterium. There are no outward signs. You can often measure mass, and the deuterium burning mass is approximately 13 Jupiter masses, but it depends on metallicity and age. Therefore, if you find an object that's around the limit, you're not sure what to call it without knowing metallicity or age, which is harder to do. Additionally, an older 13 M_J brown dwarf won't be fusing deuterium anymore, so does that mean it started as a brown dwarf and then became a planet when it burned all the deuterium in its core? That's not very satisfying.

• Formation mechanism: formed via disk instability/gravitational collapse (as opposed to core accretion)? There is very likely overlap in masses between high-mass core accretion objects and low-mass gravitational collapse objects. You could therefore have like a 10 M_J brown dwarf via gravitational collapse that has never fused deuterium, but a 15 M_J planet formed via core accretion that fuses deuterium. That's not very satisfying either to have an overlap in mass ranges.

• Observational: use 13 M_J as your cutoff? It's reasonable since that is generally the most observational characteristic that can somewhat distinguish the above scenarios. However, that means some your brown dwarfs formed via core accretion, while some planets formed via gravitational collapse. Similarly, it means that some of your brown dwarfs never fused deuterium, and some of your planets do fuse deuterium. Physically, it doesn't make sense to have either, but observationally, it's a very nice cutoff. Still, this isn't very satisfying either.

As far as I'm aware as a PhD in astronomy in exoplanets, there's not really an agreed-upon consensus among these three choices of definition.

same vibe as this

A white dwarf is a dead star that lost much of its mass though, so it's not really comparable. Gas giants will never form around a white dwarf, although secondary rocky planets might.

Space and astrophysics are way more interesting than these headlines (for those who study and understand more of it). If these headlines grab one kids attention and makes them turn to study it as a career path or hobby then it's done its job. We don't want dense scientific papers to have to also attract the next wave of scientists, that's what these bait headlines are for. For example in these posts the headline brings you in. To either learn more or educate people on the actual science. It's a win/win.

You don't even really need consciousness, pfft

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Well the objection isn’t any size relation but that under current models a Jupiter-type planet that close to this type of star “should” have boiled away before properly forming.

Ergo begs the question is this some Goldilocks scenario that is astronomically rare… or are we going to start finding these by the dozens and need to update our models.

Headline still very clickbait but the actual naming tracks with science’s bad habit of bad names getting out into the public sphere minus context.

My first sentence is just my general complaint about space journalism that the word "size" is not clear because it could mean several things that are very different.

The paper itself admits that this could be the extreme end of our current models given known uncertainties and variabilities and therefore not "forbidden", but yeah, if they find a bunch of them, then we'll have to start tweaking models more.

In other words, good paper, bad headline and slightly hyperbolic article, as is typical for science journalism.

Kanodia explained in the statement. "Based on our nominal current understanding of planet formation, TOI-5205b should not exist; it is a 'forbidden' planet."

From the article

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I don't think it refutes anything, its just an anomaly. Basically physics tells us that due to the size of the star a planet should have a near impossible probability of forming.

But here we are looking at one so it just adds more mystery to how things in the macro scale work.

>I think calling it "forbidden" is very hyperbolic

Yes well, it is space.com

Look, the last time a guy visited forbidden planet, he wound up as a kooky doctor who had the lasagna on a flight out of Chicago 30 years later

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Maybe it doesn't even belong to the solar system so that it doesn't have to comply with formation theories, and it was just a caught rogue planet.

"This planet should not exist based on our current understanding of planet formation."

- Carnegie Science astronomer Shubham Kanodia

​

"I disagree."

- A random on Reddit

The fact that he is saying "can't" in this situation is pretty disingenuous. The probability of a planet of it's size forming around a star that small are just very small but not impossible.

This wouldn't even be something entirely new if you throw in all star types into the mix. We have discovered planets orbiting neutron stars before that likely formed after the star collapsed into its neutron dense state.

But again, it's not refuting anything. The probability is still very small that saying "it wouldn't" form isn't necessarily a lie but we shouldn't always deal in absolutes when it comes to this stuff.

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"if the universe is so big, then why won't it fight me?"

It's clickbait headlines (and stories) like this that make space.com the pile of pulp it is.

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> I'm going to set up my speaker system and play tibetan throat music while I mediate out loud.

I think we might ride the same bus.

I’m curious if the barycenter is still in the star, the article doesn’t mention it.

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Nobody, but gravity will stop you from ever leaving.

Hmm IDK 50/50 = 1/1 so 100% he is going or is that 100% not going? I feel like there should be a cat in a box somewhere to make it definitive.

Depends if he ties toast to the back of the cat to use as an endlessly rotating fuel source

Yeah come on, hyperbole is their bread & butter

learn from the pam tree facing storms and hurricanes yet it grows taller with patience and resilience little grasshopper

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That only means that it requires permits many.

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All things are possible through the Immaterium.

It hasn’t refuted anything because they haven’t confirmed anything. JWST is the next step to see if they can determine star / planet composition and therefore mass to see if it does still fit into our current models or not, and even then it won’t be definitive. Even the article states that it has the potential to challenge our understanding, they did not say it refutes our understanding as we do not have enough information yet to make that claim.

It’s not a tiny star. I’d say it’s pretty average honestly. Some people might even say it’s a perfect size or even big!

Our hubris as a scientific species is out of control.

You better call the Krell and get a visa first or they'll send monsters from the ID to meet you.

It's also thought that stars and planets form in fundamentally different ways, so an actual failed star like a brown dwarf should be different from a planet, even one of about the same size.

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As I found out not too long ago, that debate was already mostly settled when I learned it and is long-settled now -- gas giants have a icy-rocky planetary core formed in the accretion disk along with the other rocky planets, and the much larger mass that they build up allows them to hold an enormous atmosphere during accretion while the rocky planets will bleed or evaporate most or all of theirs away. (See perhaps NASA's brief on planet formation -- I feel like Wikipedia's article is skirting the gas giant issue so probably has some conflict between editors.)

A failed star is a brown dwarf, which can form as part of a binary just like any stellar binary. The reason this particular system isn't that is that they say it's specifically a Jupiter-like gas giant. Further, they obviously got the mass since afaik methods of finding exoplanets will always get the orbit (by wobble at least), and the article says recorded the light during transit, so they would have calculated the radius; thus they'd be able to calculate the planet's density. Now, the density of Jupiter is 1.33 g/cm^3. Compare a brown dwarf, which as a failed star has no (or very little) core fusion to provide pressure that counteracts the enormous compression that's from the gravity of its enormous mass (about .07 solar masses, which is still huge) -- it is thus degenerate matter (in the core at least), as in a white dwarf, and at least in one case the average density was calculated at 108 g/cm^3. There would be plenty of other evidence to line up too -- I'm sure they weighed the possibility that it could be a brown dwarf, or at the very least a very unusual type of planet that must be tested for everything.

(And just for fun, the densities of main-sequence and off-sequence stars are all "known" (more or less -- it's not pure hydrogen or pure clean fusion), because math. I can't find a simple list, but you can find masses and radii -- anyway, as a type-M star, it is about 5 g/cm^3; compare the Sun at about 1.4 g/cm^3 -- more mass means more pressure inward, but also more fusion so more pressure outward,(See Thompson, Astr 1144 Lect.10, OSU)

"Never tell me the odds!" --Corellian spacer saying, usually involving ridiculous odds and slim chances of survival

I wonder if binary gas giants are possible. Think two Jupiter-sized planets orbiting around a star. For some reason, I find that idea vaguely terrifying...

Yeah, it wasn't the best example star but my point was that just because it's small doesn't mean anything about how much mass it has, which is the point that I feel like the headline was missing.

The cat says you've already been there as long as no one is looking.

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the nice thing is, we keep getting older and the forbidden planet stays basically the saaamme age

I feel like there should be a rainbow involved somewhere in that travel method.

No one. But physics aren't a who. Physics will stop you.

There was a meteorite this week that was 'the size of a Corgi and three times the weight of an elephant.' I still don't know what that means.

https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/117zuci/corgisized_meteor_as_heavy_as_4_baby_elephants/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

He has at least a 33 1/3% and that’s bad news for the forbidden planet

Gravity better pack a lunch

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All articles from space .com should be banned from this sub. They are filled with garbage

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Won’t somebody think of the children!

The rail guns on Medina station

I think the difference between gas giants and the smallest brown dwarfs is their origin. Planets are formed in the proto-planetary disk while stars are formed in a nebula as the center of a system

So not an M class planet then?

The size of the star doesn’t matter if the star knows what to do.

Listen, it’s what you do with it that counts.

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What are the implications? Uniquely low orbit? Fast orbit? I’m a layman but I’m curious as to why this means something.

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You’re telling me the rock is going around a ball of nuclear fusion in way that is consistent with our understanding of how rocks go around balls of nuclear fusion? Fascinating. It’s just a catchy headline, isn’t it? I’m guessing the discovery isn’t too revealing?

The barycenter of the Sun and Jupiter is--surprisingly not inside the Sun, so I think we can guess the answer.

The system is also considerably more complex, so…

Previous question still stands.

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Ah yes internet historian reference

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Maybe it was just as wide as a corgi?

Stars usually blow away the atmospheres of gas giants if they get too close which is the issue here

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4 BABY elephants bro. Please if you cite someone do it properly. God damn it’s baby elephants aren’t they cute tho?

Most galaxies prefer them that size.

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It fits that galaxy perfectly

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Its average height for the time.

My galaxy obviously does, it compliments me all the time! Their galaxy is probably toxic and very discriminatory to a certain galaxy

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What's important is this star and planet make the relationship work.

Forbidden Shmorshmidden. What are they gonna do, write a letter?

Wait you mean the guys who refer to other planetary systems as "solar systems" aren't the most accurate space reporters?

It’s the motion of the solar ocean

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Oh it does. And it always wins in the end.

Uh volume is directly related to the radius

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This.

The idea that human theories of the universe have any inherent credibility is patently absurd - like an infant in the womb asserting how things work on other continents, based solely on their limited experiences under vastly different circumstances.

Everything humans "know" is a guess that might be wrong.

Every mistake we discover is an opportunity to celebrate how many more options there truly are in the universe.

Any pretense you read the article? 🤔

>I mean, aren't gas giants just "failed" stars that never got big enough?

No one knows.

See, the article talks about how previous theories are no longer necessarily applicable - which means everything we've been assuming about this stuff now gets rechecked, because right there in front of us is proof that what we believed before... ain't so.

It disrupts the presumed accuracy of every model that has relied on the previous interpretation. All speculation that relied on the previous theories for validity is now suspect, and how much of a rewrite will need to happen is yet to be determined.

Which is a constant in all facets of science, just btw. Every discovery, from the coronal loop optical illusion theory to the actual diameter of Terra's atmosphere, to the true electromagnetic strength of Sol, even the existence of tectonic plates... are updates to what humans believed was completely true.

"Imagine what you'll 'know' tomorrow." - K, MIB

Some minds refuse to accept new data if it contradicts what they believed before. Other minds are eager to accept and integrate new concepts. Reckon we're all finding the happy balance between both guidances?

Unsolicited Advice: Don't worry about the emotional stability of internet randos - if they're adults, they know it's their job to regulate their own feelings. If they're children, they'll blame you whenever they're unhappy anyway.

Your zen should be far more precious than internet rando opinions. 🖖

So true 👍 There is so much out there, that is a mystery.

By r^3 , sure, but if a star is 4x the radius, it's 64x the volume, so whether you meant "4x the size" meaning radius or "4x the size" meaning volume, the two are very different.

The discovery is very cool. I just dislike using "size" because it's unclear and dislike using "forbidden" because it sacrifices accuracy for sounding even cooler. An accurate headline that still sounds cool(ish) would be "Massive planet orbiting small red dwarf, an extreme mass ratio that challenges planet formation". I'm sure a professional could clean that up a bit without using the word "forbidden".

But it's still a very cool discovery.

Radius of a main sequence star is proportional to the mass of the star. If you know the radius, you can pretty accurately get the mass. (It depends some on age and metallicity too, but not that much, as long as it hasn't evolved to a red giant yet.)

Planets, on the other hand, don't follow the rule nearly as well, especially for gas giants. Jupiter and a brown dwarf 80x the mass of Jupiter both have the same radius.

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> So "size" in this context means radius of the star vs. planet, not the mass, area, or volume.

Thank you. It was so obnoxious that it didn't explain that.

The barycenter is def not in the sun

Because a star is only 4 times the size of a planet

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