A New Planet in Pegasi?

Planet Detected Orbiting a Star Similar to the Sun, Astronomers Say

Swiss astronomers reported in the November 23, 1995, issue of the journal Nature that they had
detected a companion objectpossibly a planetin a close orbit around the star 51 Pegasi. The
star is located in the constellation Pegasus, 45 light-years (425 trillion km, or 264 trillion mi)
from the earth. The orbiting object cannot be observed directly, but the astronomers inferred its
existence from a slight oscillation of 51 Pegasi that the investigators suggest is caused by the
gravitational pull of an unseen object.
Astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland first
announced their detection of the object on October 6 at an astronomy conference in Florence,
Italy. Two teams of astronomers in the United States observed 51 Pegasi following the
announcement and reported that they had confirmed Mayor and Queloz's discovery using the
same measurements and methods. The scientific community greeted the teams' results with
excitement; if the results hold up over time, the object would be the first planet identified outside
our solar system that is circling a star similar to the sun.
The star 51 Pegasi is much like the sun in age and size, but its suspected companion object
resembles nothing in our solar system. According to the astronomers' measurements, the
suspected planet is approximately 7.5 million km (4.7 million mi) from 51 Pegasionly one-
twentieth the distance from its star as the earth is from the sun. In contrast, the planet closest to
the sun, Mercury, is about 58 million km (36 million mi) from the sun. The newly detected
object's proximity to 51 Pegasi means it would be very hot, with an estimated temperature of
about 1025 C (1880 F).
According to the astronomers' measurements, the reported object also orbits 51 Pegasi very
quickly, making a full revolution every 4.23 days. The planet that circles the sun most rapidly is
Mercury, which makes a full circuit in 87.6 days. The mass of the suspected object near 51
Pegasi is estimated to be one-half to two times the mass of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar
system.
Scientists have confirmed and generally accepted the detection of only one planetary system
outside our solar system. The objects in this system orbit a star very different from the sun,
however. In 1992, radio astronomers identified two planets orbiting a pulsara dense, rapidly
spinning remnant of a supernova explosion that emits a stream of low-frequency radiation.
The astronomers reported that two objects circling the pulsar each had about the same mass as
the earth. They also found evidence of a third orbiting object about as massive as the moon. It
was unclear whether these objects were created when the star itself came into being, as the
planets in our solar system are believed to have formed. The objects near the pulsar may have
been created from matter blown off of the pulsar in the supernova explosion but remaining in the
gravitational grip of the exploded star.
Scientists are also intrigued by the possibility that a second object may be circling 51 Pegasi in a
larger, slower orbit. Mayor and Queloz observed a secondary variation in the light from 51
Pegasi that shifted much more slowly and slightly than the variation that suggested the closer
object. Astronomers were working to confirm this result at the time the study was published.
One question raised by the Swiss astronomers' discovery was how 51 Pegasi's suspected
companion was formed. Mayor and Queloz offered two explanations for the origin of such an
object: either it formed as a gas giant like Jupiter, or it was a brown dwarf (a starlike object larger
than a planet but smaller than most stars) that was stripped of some of its mass by radiation from
51 Pegasi. If the latter were true and the hypothesized object was being quickly devoured by the
star, then it would not be considered a planet. If the object was a Jupiter-like gas giant, however,
a different set of questions would be raised. Astronomers are not accustomed to the idea of gas
giants existing so close to a star and have no clear explanation of how one could come to be in
the position that 51 Pegasi's companion occupies.