SPACE/COSMOS
Combination of cosmic processes shapes the size and location of sub-Neptunes
Newly developed tool helps parse data and detect planets smaller than Neptune around young stars, providing insight into their formation
Penn State
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Using a newly developed tool to sift through data from the NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, a team led by a Penn State astronomer has identified young sub-Neptune planets close to their stars and found that a variety of cosmic process may have shaped their size and location. In this hypothetical planetary system depicted over time, the planets b through f are depicted at three distinct stages: 10–100 Myr (top panel), 100 Myr–1 Gyr (middle panel), and >1 Gyr (bottom panel). This progression highlights key processes shaping the system, such as atmospheric mass loss and compositional evolution driven by stellar radiation and planetary interactions.
view moreCredit: Abigail Minnich (abbyminnich.wixsite.com/film)
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A combination of cosmic processes shapes the formation of one of the most common types of planets outside of our solar system, according to a new study led by researchers at Penn State. The research team used data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) to study young sub-Neptunes — planets bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune — that orbit close to their stars. The work provides insights into how these planets might migrate inward or lose their atmosphere during their early stages.
A paper describing the research appeared today March 17 in the Astronomical Journal. The findings offer clues about the properties of sub-Neptunes and help address long-standing questions about their origins, the team said.
“The majority of the 5,500 or so exoplanets discovered to date have a very close orbit to their stars, closer than Mercury to our sun, which we call ‘close-in’ planets,” said Rachel Fernandes, President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State and leader of the research team. “Many of these are gaseous sub-Neptunes, a type of planet absent from our own solar system. While our gas giants, like Jupiter and Saturn, formed farther from the sun, it’s unclear how so many close-in sub-Neptunes managed to survive near their stars, where they are bombarded by intense stellar radiation.”
To better understand how sub-Neptunes form and evolve, the researchers turned to planets around young stars, which only recently became observable thanks to TESS.
“Comparing the frequency of exoplanets of certain sizes around stars of different ages can tell us a lot about the processes that shape planet formation,” Fernandes said. “If planets commonly form at specific sizes and locations, we should see a similar frequency of those sizes across different ages. If we don’t, it suggests that certain processes are changing these planets over time.”
Observing planets around young stars, however, has traditionally been difficult. Young stars emit bursts of intense radiation, rotate quickly and are highly active, creating high levels of “noise” that make it challenging to observe planets around them.
“Young stars in their first billion years of life throw tantrums, emitting a ton of radiation,” Fernandes explained. “These stellar tantrums cause a lot of noise in the data, so we spent the last six years developing a computational tool called Pterodactyls to see through that noise and actually detect young planets in TESS data.”
The research team used Pterodactyls to evaluate TESS data and identify planets with orbital periods of 12 days or less — for reference, much less than Mercury’s 88-day orbit —with the goal of examining the planet sizes, as well as how the planets were shaped by the radiation from their host stars. Because the team’s survey window was 27 days, this allowed them to see two full orbits from potential planets. They focused on planets between a radius of 1.8 and 10 times the size of Earth, allowing the team to see if the frequency of sub-Neptunes is similar or different in young systems versus older systems previously observed with TESS and NASA’s retired Kepler Space Telescope.
The researchers found that the frequency of close-in sub-Neptunes changes over time, with fewer sub-Neptunes around stars between 10 and 100 million years of age compared to those between 100 million and 1 billion years of age. However, the frequency of close-in sub-Neptunes is much less in older, more stable systems.
“We believe a variety of processes are shaping the patterns we see in close-in stars of this size,” Fernandes said. “It’s possible that many sub-Neptunes originally formed further away from their stars and slowly migrated inward over time, so we see more of them at this orbital period in the intermediate age. In later years, it’s possible that planets are more commonly shrinking when radiation from the star essentially blows away its atmosphere, a process called atmospheric mass loss that could explain the lower frequency of sub-Neptunes. But it’s likely a combination of cosmic processes shaping these patterns over time rather than one dominant force.”
The researchers said they would like to expand their observation window with TESS to observe planets with longer orbital periods. Future missions like the European Space Agency’s PLATO may also allow the research team to observe planets of smaller sizes, similar to that of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Expanding their analysis to smaller and more distant planets could help the researchers refine their tool and provide additional information about how and where planets form.
Additionally, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope could permit the characterization of the density and composition of individual planets, which Fernandes said could give additional hints to where they formed.
“Combining studies of individual planets with the population studies like we conducted here would give us a much better picture of planet formation around young stars,” Fernandes said. “The more solar systems and planets we discover, the more we realize that our solar system isn’t really the template; it’s an exception. Future missions might enable us to find smaller planets around young stars and give us a better picture of how planetary systems form and evolve with time, helping us better understand how our solar system, as we know it today, came to be.”
In addition to Fernandes, the research team at Penn State includes Rebekah Dawson, Shaffer Career Development Professor in Science and professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the time of the research and now a physical scientist at NASA. The research team also includes Galen J. Bergsten, Ilaria Pascucci, Kevin K. Hardegree-Ullman, Tommi T. Koskinen and Katia Cunha at the University of Arizona; Gijs Mulders at Pontifical Catholic University of Chile; Steven Giacalone, Eric Mamajek, Kyle Pearson, David Ciardi, Preethi Karpoor, Jessie Christiansen and Jon Zink at the California Institute of Technology; James Rogers at the University of Cambridge, Los Angeles; Akash Gupta at Princeton University; Kiersten Boley at the Carnegie Institution for Science; Jason Curtis at Columbia University; Sabina Sagynbayeva at Stony Brook University; Sakhee Bhure at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia; and Gregory Feiden at the University of North Georgia.
Funding from NASA, including through support of the “Alien Earths” grant; Chile’s National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development; and the U.S. National Science Foundation supported this research. Additional support was provided by the Penn State Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds and the Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence Center. Computations for this research were performed with Penn State’s University’s Institute for Computational and Data Sciences’ Roar supercomputer.
Journal
The Astronomical Journal
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
"Signatures of Atmospheric Mass Loss and Planet Migration in the Time Evolution of Short-period Transiting Exoplanets
Article Publication Date
17-Mar-2025
Deep dive into space turns up new Spitzer bubbles
Using AI image recognition, deep learning model efficiently and accurately finds structures related to star formation
Osaka Metropolitan University
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The images on the left show newly detected bubble-like structures, while the images on the right show the bubble-like structure detected in this study and previous studies. By using wavelengths of 8 μm (green) and 24 μm (red), it is possible to detect the bubble structures created by the formation of high-mass stars.
view moreCredit: Osaka Metropolitan University
To learn more about the deepest reaches of our own galaxy and the mysteries of star formation, Japanese researchers have created a deep learning model. The Osaka Metropolitan University-led team used artificial intelligence to pore through the vast amounts of data being acquired from space telescopes, finding bubble-like structures that had not been included in existing astronomical databases.
The Milky Way galaxy we live in, like other galaxies in the universe, has bubble-like structures formed mainly during the birth and activity of high-mass stars. These so-called Spitzer bubbles hold important clues to understanding the process of star formation and galaxy evolution.
Graduate School of Science student Shimpei Nishimoto and Professor Toshikazu Onishi collaborated with scientists from across Japan to develop the deep learning model. Using data from the Spitzer Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope, the model employs AI image recognition to efficiently and accurately detect Spitzer bubbles. They also detected shell-like structures that are thought to have been formed by supernova explosions.
“Our results show it is possible to conduct detailed investigations not only of star formation, but also of the effects of explosive events within galaxies,” stated graduate student Nishimoto.
Professor Onishi added, “In the future, we hope that advancements in AI technology will accelerate the elucidation of the mechanisms of galaxy evolution and star formation.”
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About OMU
Established in Osaka as one of the largest public universities in Japan, Osaka Metropolitan University is committed to shaping the future of society through “Convergence of Knowledge” and the promotion of world-class research. For more research news, visit https://www.omu.ac.jp/en/ and follow us on social media: X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn.
Journal
Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan
Method of Research
Observational study
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
Infrared Bubble Recognition in the Milky Way and Beyond Using Deep Learning
Article Publication Date
17-Mar-2025
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