Exoplanet Formation Mystery

[Giacomo]

Hi everyone, I was reading about a new exoplanet that has been discovered by the Transatlantic Exoplanet Survey, http://www.unregisterednews.com/content/view/198/51. Does anyone have any idea about how such a huge planet could form so close to a star? It completes one orbit in 3 1/2 days! What kind of a star is GSC02620-00648, anyone know how this might affect planet formation?

[Daecon]

Does that mean the planet is closer to it's sun than the Moon is to Earth?

 

It must be traveling a lot faster than Earth does too, to be able to keep such a shallow orbit, perhaps?

[Martin]

a big planet that forms further out can gradually lose energy and angular momentum over a long time by interaction with the other crud in the system

 

so it can spiral in towards the primary

 

a big (jupitersize) planet that you see close in today may have formed 100s of millions of years earlier much further out in the system

 

 

planets interact with chunks of crud in several ways, no only by collision but also by NEAR collision where they can lose energy by giving other stuff the slingshot

 

and also by a bad resonance with other planets that may have formed or be trying to form, so that energy drains out of the jupiter and she spirals in

 

it is actually a wonder to me that our system is so stable, and that most of the loose crud has been cleared out so we dont get banged so much

 

sorry I cant provide source links. Maybe wikipedia has something. I am just relying on memory of articles about this back in the 1990s when these hot (nearstar) jupiters started to be found and people were wondering how they got to be so close.

 

maybe someone else knows some reliable source links