Lonely, Exiled Exoplanet Was Kicked Out of Its System by a Parent Star

A newly discovered exoplanet is sitting an unusual distance from its star-16 times farther than Pluto is from the sun. Now, researchers have found that this planet may have been kicked out of its birthplace in a way that may be similar to what may have happened in our own early solar system.

In this latest study, the researchers used images from the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) to get a better look at the solar system and the planet. This revealed that the star has a lopsided comet belt, which is indicative of a very disturbed solar system. This hints that the planet interactions that roiled the comets closer to the star may have sent the exoplanet into exile, as well.

"We think that the planet itself could have captured material from the comet belt, and that the planet is surrounded by a large dust ring or dust shroud," said Paul Kalas, one of the researchers, in a news release. "We conducted three tests and found tentative evidence for a dust could, but the jury is still out."

This particular exoplanet is of interest since it may have undergone conditions that may have been present in our own solar system when it was young. In fact, our solar system may have had planets that it kicked out of its local neighborhood and are no longer among the eight planets we see today.

"Is this a picture of our solar system when it was 13 million years old?" asks Kalas. "We know that our own belt of comets, the Kuiper belt, lost a large fraction of its mass as it evolved, but we don't have a time machine to go back and see how it was decimated. One of the ways, though, is to study these violent episodes of gravitational disturbance around other young stars that kick out many objects, including planets."

The findings are published in the Astrophysical Journal.

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