Newly spotted exoplanet is in its infancy
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.029913
GeekWire : Trevor David of Caltech and his colleagues have spotted an intriguing planet orbiting K2-33, a star in the field of view of the Kepler space telescope during its extended K2 mission. The planet has a diameter about six times that of Earth, and it orbits its star every 5.4 days at a distance of 7.4 million km. Further examination of the system revealed that the star is still surrounded by gas and dust from the protoplanetary disk. The presence of the disk’s remnants suggests that the planet is less than 10 million years old, since models of planetary system evolution predict that disks dissipate fairly quickly. Now researchers have to figure out why the youthful planet is so close to its star; most models suggest that large planets form far away and then migrate inward later.