There is a myriad of fascinating objects in the cosmos, including planets, comets, asteroids,
stars that are more than 2,000 times as big as the sun, and supermassive black holes that have
the ability to rip celestial objects apart. It can be easier to consider the nature of objects
such as planets that are nearby. Even though our solar system contains a number of massive planets,
it is natural to wonder if there are any greater planets out there.
We are looking at the largest planet in the cosmos, so then how massive is it,
where is it, and how does it compare to other planets in our neighborhood? Join
us as we investigate the largest planet found by scientists in the universe.
In order to identify these heavenly planets, we require a working definition. Even if the
solution to this problem may seem to be quite simple, the term "planet" has been given several
rather plain definitions. However, that doesn't help us focus on the definition for a debate;
fortunately, we have a governing body to offer us a straightforward answer.
According to the International Astronomical Union, a planet must exhibit three qualities
or carry out three main functions. It needs to rotate around a star. It
must be big enough for gravity to mold it spherically. It must have a large enough
orbit around its star for and to pass through. This definition, which excludes some celestial
bodies from consideration and created controversy when it was first presented because Pluto was
not included in the list of planets in our solar system, is actually rather helpful.
The term "exoplanet," which refers to any planet outside of our solar system,
must also be taken into consideration. And that brings us to AB AUR B, a gigantic exoplanet
that is similar to Jupiter and is nine times as large. This planet was found by scientists at a
remarkably early stage of creation; they describe it as still in the womb. This discovery challenged
the accepted theory of how planets originate. The planet, a gas giant orbiting extraordinarily
far from its young host star, was discovered and investigated by astronomers using the Hubble space
telescope in orbit and the Subaru telescope near the peak of a dormant Hawaiian volcano.
Jupiter and Saturn are examples of gas giants; these planets are mostly composed of hydrogen
and helium, with swirling gases encircling a smaller solid core. This new research could
hold the secret to finding extraterrestrial life. "We think it is still very early in its 'birthing'
process," says Subaru telescope astrophysicist Thayne Currie of NASA's AMES Research Center.
Evidence suggests that this is the earliest stage of gas giant formation ever observed;
it is enclosed within a massive disc of gas and dust containing the components required to form
planets and around the star AB Aurigae, which is 508 light years or 9.5 trillion kms away from
Earth. It is nearing the maximum size required to be classified as a planet rather than a brown
dwarf, a body halfway between a planet and a star that is scorched by gas and dust falling into it.
Almost all known exoplanets have orbits closer to their stars than the distance between our solar
and its farthest planet, Neptune; nevertheless, this planet orbits the sun at a distance 93 times
bigger than Earth and three times that of Neptune. According to astronomer and study co-author Oliver
Guyon of the Subaru telescope at the University of Arizona, "The conventional thinking is that most,
if not all, planets formed by the slow accretion of solids onto a rocky core, and the gas giants
go through this phase before the solid core is massive enough to start accreting gas."
In this scenario, protoplanets in a young star's disc gradually transform from dust
to larger-sized solid objects, and when their core masses reach several times that of Earth,
they begin to collect gas from the disc. "This discovery challenges our understanding
of planet formation," Guyon said, adding that "this process cannot form giant planets at a
large orbital distance." The scientists think AB AUR B is actually forming in a situation
where the disc surrounding the star cools and gravity forces it to break up into one or more
huge clumps that eventually form into planets. According to Currie, "there are various methods
for cooking an egg," and it appears that there may be more than one way for a planet like Jupiter to
form. Nearly 60 times brighter and 2.4 times more massive than our sun is the star AB Aurigae. By
stellar standards, it is just about 2 million years old, compared to our middle-aged sun,
which is approximately 4.5 billion years old. Our understanding of the cosmos is eventually
increased by the ongoing challenge posed by new astronomical data to our established ideas.
What then is the largest planet in the universe?
The largest planet in the universe, ROXs 42Bb, is estimated to have a diameter up to 2.5 times that
of Jupiter or slightly larger. This enormous planet, which was first discovered in 2013,
is believed to be located in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex; this kind of
planet is referred to as a hot Jupiter. In our solar system, Jupiter is 400
million miles from the sun, but ROXs 42Bb has an extremely short orbital period and
is located in close proximity to its star, so the terminology used to describe it suggests that its
surface temperature is likely to be very high. Because of the rapidity of their host stars,
hot Jupiter's are easier to detect and quantify. In contrast to some of the other candidates,
ROXs 42Bb is almost surely a planet according to scientific consensus;
however, several of the candidates for the title of the universe's largest planet are regarded
not to be actual planets at all. HD 100546b, for example, has a radius of 6.9 Rj; however,
the exoplanet's mass and other characteristics suggest that it is a brown dwarf. A brown dwarf
is an object that lies between a planet and its star; despite being far larger than conventional
planets, these stars did not pile up enough mass to begin fusing hydrogen in their centers. Brown
dwarfs are thus defunct stars that continue to evolve rapidly for the majority of their lifespan.
A few of these brown dwarfs are on the list of the largest planets in the universe;
nonetheless, they are not true planets. On the other hand, a colossal Super-Jupiter orbiting
two stars defies predictions surrounding the formation of planets and their environments.
The planet known as B Centauri B is approximately 325 light years away from Jupiter. The gas giant,
which is approximately 11 times more massive than Jupiter but appears to have a comparable
composition, is part of a class of planets known as Super-Jupiters, which have masses greater
than the largest planets in our solar system. It revolves around a binary system, which is a
pair of gravitationally coupled stars; its orbit is possibly the largest of any known planet; it
is 560 times larger than Earth's and roughly 100 times wider than Jupiter's orbit around the sun.
The mass of the two stars that comprise the B Centauri system ranges from six to ten times that
of our sun; no planet has ever been found circling a star with a mass greater than three times that
of the sun; it was previously thought that stars larger than that would burn out the planetary
formation process due to their intense radiation emissions; this discovery disproves that theory.
Here's how it went down. Markus Johnson and his colleagues were surveying the star system with
the spherical exoplanet imager on the European Southern Observatory's very large telescope in
Paranal Chile. "I kind of went into it with a blank head," Markus admitted. " I thought
there would be no planets around the stars, which would be interesting, but there might
also be potentially plenty of planets around them, which would be even more interesting."
The detection of a planet so early in the survey, which ran from March 2019 to April 2021,
surprised the scientists, but its features were even more surprising. The b Centauri system is
made up of two stars, B Centauri A and B Centauri B. They have a mass that is roughly six to ten
times that of the sun when combined and should be too massive to host a giant planet at this mass
range. Furthermore, both of them are hotter stars than those that typically host planets. The newly
discovered planet is located within the larger of the two tandem stars in the b Centauri system.
This star is more than three times hotter and has a mass around five to six times that of the sun;
it also releases a lot of ultraviolet and x-ray radiation; it belongs to the B-type star class
of extraordinarily bright blue stars. It is rather young in cosmic standards,
being only about 15 million years old. Planets, as previously established,
are formed from gas and dust left over from star formation. These particles collide, splitting into
progressively larger fragments until a newborn planet is formed. This planet discovery calls
into doubt the timeline for planetary formation. Planets are formed as material combines in the
huge discs of expanding gas and dust that surround newborn stars. The formation of a planet with such
a giant size is threatened by the high intensity radiation from these massive stars. Before this
most recent discovery, scientists believed that stars of this size did not allow the formation of
gas giant planets. This means that the ability to develop rapidly is rather tough because they don't
have anything to form it with and so won't have time to form before the disk vanishes.
The discovery also raises the possibility that planets could form faster because the distance
from the stars probably matters a lot, or did when the planet formed. The process of planet formation
appears to be highly diverse; it has frequently exceeded our expectations in the past and will
most likely continue to do so in the future. So, what happens next? Because of the new
exoplanet's close proximity to Earth, the team hopes to conduct additional observations of it,
and they have already filed bids to some of the largest telescopes available to learn more about
the planet's atmosphere and other aspects. Heading back home, what is the solar system's
largest planet? It is no longer news that Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. This
enormous gas giant planet has a gigantic radius of 43 441 miles and a mass that is approximately 317
times that of Earth. However, this planet is not a brown dwarf because it lacks the necessary mass.
According to Yamila Miguel, Jupiter had the greatest influence on the formation of
the solar system since its gravitational pull determined the sizes and orbits of
its cosmic neighbors, therefore understanding how it formed is critical for future planets.
The researchers stressed that it's critical that we don't label these new worlds because of
their cloudy surfaces when we discover them with NASA's James Web space telescope. The title of the
largest planet ever discovered is determined by how exoplanets are characterized; nevertheless,
new and exciting discoveries in the future may alter our current understanding of these worlds.
Planetary science is a complex subject. International agencies
frequently dispute on the classifications of planets, dwarf planets, and exoplanets,
which is still being worked out. But one thing is certain: Jupiter is the largest planet in
the solar system. This fact will not change, but our knowledge of the universe will get
more focused as time passes. You never know when researchers will make a completely new discovery;
they might just drop a discovery bomb on us, disrupting all we believe to be true.
Anyway, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.