A study led by researchers from Tel Aviv University has discovered two “hot Jupiter” planets. The researchers: Gaia’s latest technology is revolutionizing the world of astronomy
New discovery led by researchers from Tel Aviv University: The Gaia spacecraft of the European Space Agency ESA recently identified two new planets in distant solar systems. This is the first time Gaia has been able to locate new planets and so the planets have been given the names Gaia-1b and Gaia-2b.
The study was led by Prof. Shai Zucker, head of the Porter School of Environment and Earth Sciences, and Aviad Pinchi, a doctoral student at the School of Physics and Astronomy.
Our solar system has eight planets – huge spheres that orbit the sun in a circular motion. Less well known are hundreds of billions more planets in our galaxy, the Milky Way galaxy, which contains unimaginable amounts of solar systems. Planets in distant solar systems were first discovered in 1995 and have since been the subject of constant research by astronomers, hoping to learn more about our solar system with their help.
Aviad Pinchi details: “The planets were discovered thanks to the fact that they partially obscure their suns every time they complete their coffee, causing a periodic decrease in the intensity of light coming to us from that distant sun. Located in Arizona. This telescope is equipped with two huge mirrors, each 8.4 meters in diameter, making it one of the largest telescopes in the world today.
Gaia is a spacecraft of the European Space Agency ESA, whose main purpose is three-dimensional mapping of the structure of our galaxy, the Milky Way galaxy, with unprecedented accuracy. For this mission, Gaia scans the sky as it rotates around an axis, tracking the position of about 2 billion suns in our galaxy, with an accuracy of up to millions of degrees. To illustrate, such accuracy is equivalent to the ability to identify from Earth a coin of 10 NIS found on the moon. While tracking the positions of the suns, Gaia also measures their brightness – an extremely important feature in observational astronomy, as much can be learned from it about the physical properties of celestial bodies. The changes documented in the brightness of two distant suns are the ones that led to the discovery.
Prof. Zucker has extensive experience in discovering planets since the days when he was a student of the veteran astronomer Prof. Zvi Maza. He says: Ours, and are so close to their suns that they complete their coffee in less than four days, meaning each year on Earth is equivalent to 90 years of the same planet. The discovery was made possible by careful searches and using artificial intelligence methods, and so the two new planets were found. About 40 more candidates will be announced soon. The data continues to accumulate, and it is very likely that Gaia will discover many more planets with this method later. “
This discovery is another milestone in the scientific contribution of the Gaia space mission, which is already crediting a real revolution in the world of astronomy. Gaia’s ability to detect planets by the partial concealment method, which usually requires continuous monitoring for a long time, has so far been questionable. The research team, tasked with this, developed an algorithm specifically tailored to Gaia’s properties and for years searched for these signals in the spacecraft’s cumulative databases.
And what about the possibility of sustaining life across those distant and new planets? Aviad Pinchi concludes: “As mentioned, the new planets are very close to their suns and therefore their temperature is very high, around a thousand degrees Celsius, so the chance of life evolving there is nil. This type of planet is called in the astronomical community ‘Hot Jupiter’. Jupiter’s because of its size, and ‘hot’ because of its proximity to its sun. We will be privileged to visit those distant worlds in the near future, but we are only at the beginning of the road, and it is very exciting to be a part of the search. “
To the scientific paper
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