CAMBRIDGE, Mass--The dozen or so new planets discovered within the past
year probably had violent beginnings, mainly because they were born in
solar systems with two or more massive planets the size of Jupiter,
according to astrophysicists at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT).
"The properties of these new planets are completely different from
those of the planets in our own solar system," said Frederic A. Rasio,
an assistant professor in the Department of Physics.
Professor Rasio and Eric B. Ford, an MIT sophomore and physics
major, propose that the properties of the new planets, all of which are
themselves Jupiter-sized, may be the result of instabilities that
developed when they formed. These instabilities, in turn, were caused by
the planets' close proximity to one or more other Jupiter-sized planets
in their respective planetary systems.
One implication of the work "is that a system like our solar
system, which has one dominant massive planet (Jupiter) and is very
stable over long time scales (several billions of years), may be very
rare," Professor Rasio said. "The only reason why we happen to be in
such a rare system is that long-term stability may be necessary for the
development of intelligent life."
The work, which involves supercomputer simulations to try to
determine how the new planets formed, will be reported in the November 8
issue of the journal Science.
Professor Rasio said a new era in astronomy began about a year ago
when Swiss astronomers detected a planet in orbit around a star named 51
Pegasi. The announcement marked the first confirmed discovery of a
planet in orbit around another Sun-like star. Since then, more than 10
additional detections have been reported by several groups around the
world. The new planets are all Jupiter-sized objects in orbit around
Sun-like stars but have very unusual orbits that have surprised
astronomers and left theorists to puzzle over how they might have
formed.
In current physical models for planetary system formation, the
minimum distance at which a giant gaseous planet like Jupiter can form
around a star like the Sun is thought to be several astronomical units
(an astronomical unit, or AU, is the mean radius of the Earth's orbit
around the Sun). The minimum distance for the formation of a rocky
planet like Earth or Mars is a few tenths of an AU, comparable to
Mercury's distance to the Sun.
The models also say that all planets should be on nearly circular
orbits, which is the case in our solar system. But it is not the case
with the new planets, Professor Rasio said. Most of the new planets have
masses comparable to that of Jupiter, but they are orbiting at distances
much smaller than 1 AU from the central star and some have very
eccentric (i.e., noncircular) orbits.
The computer simulations by Professor Rasio and Mr. Ford suggest
that this is because in many cases an orbital instability develops when
two or more Jupiter-sized planets are formed in the same system. This
leads to a strong gravitational interaction between two of the planets,
resulting in the ejection of one while the other is left in a smaller,
eccentric orbit.
Physical collisions between the planets also can occur as a result
of the instability, leading to mergers and to a build-up of the mass of
the planet that eventually remains in the system.
The physicists also report in Science that "other, less-massive
planets [like Earth or Mars] that may have formed in the same system are
likely to be lost as a result of the...instability." When they included
inner terrestrial planets in their simulations, Professor Rasio and Mr.
Ford found that "in all cases, large eccentricities are induced in the
orbits of these...planets, eventually causing them to escape from the
system or to collide with the central star."
Professor Rasio said the implications of this work are that many,
perhaps most, planetary systems that form around other stars may go
through a type of dynamical evolution that is far more violent than was
ever imagined for our own solar system.
In addition, he said, the long-term stability of our solar system
may be a result of the presence of one single dominant planet, Jupiter,
and the stability may be a necessary condition for the development of
intelligent life.
"If it really turns out that Earth is in fact in a very unusual
kind of planetary system, then it is likely that the new planetary
systems, which we are now discovering in rapidly increasing numbers, do
not contain intelligent life," Rasio said.
Professor Rasio said he and Mr. Ford are continuing their
examination of the consequences of dynamical interactions in newly
formed planetary systems. They plan to perform about 10,000 more
numerical calculations over the next year.
The supercomputer simulations were done at the Cornell Theory
Center, which receives major funding from the National Science
Foundation (NSF) and New York State, with additional support from the
Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), the National Center for
Research Resources at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), IBM
Corporation, and other members of the Center's Corporate Partnership
Program.
