Rare Hot Neptune Found Orbiting Nearby Dwarf Star

Using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and two ground-based instruments, astronomers have discovered and confirmed a transiting hot Neptune exoplanet orbiting TOI-824, a K4-type dwarf star located 210 light-years away in the constellation of Circinus.

“There are a number of striking planet populations that emerge when studying the period and radius measurements that TESS and its predecessor Kepler have compiled for over 2,000 confirmed, transiting exoplanets they detected,” lead author Dr. Jennifer Burt of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and her colleagues wrote in their paper.

“One of the most surprising is the huge population of planets between the size of Earth and Neptune that orbit stars of all stellar types, a population that is missing from our own Solar System.”

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Image credit: Sci-News.com.

An artist’s impression of the hot Neptune TOI-824b and its parent star TOI-824. Also known as SCR J1448-5735, TYC 8688-915-1, TIC 193641523 and 2MASS J14483982-5735175, the star is around 70% the size and mass of the Sun and is 10.9 billion years old

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This animation shows the white dwarf WDJ0914+1914 and its Neptune-like exoplanet. Since the icy giant orbits the hot white dwarf at close range, the extreme ultraviolet radiation from the star strips away the planet’s atmosphere.

While most of this stripped gas escapes, giving the planet a comet-like tail, some of it swirls into a disc, itself accreting onto the white dwarf.