HONG KONG: Planets such as Jupiter are thought to be very common in the Universe. But computational models of planetary system evolution to date have struggled to explain how these gas giants survive beyond the embryonic stage.
According to these models, gas giants should migrate inwards and eventually fall into their host star within about 100,000 years.
Now, new computer simulations, described in the journal Nature, indicate that planetary embryos heat their surrounding environments, countering the forces dragging them into their stars.
“We have found a powerful ingredient that counters inward migration,” says one of the study’s authors Dr Frédéric Masset of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Planets are formed from protoplanetary disks of gas, dust and rocky fragments called planetesimals that orbit around newly forming stars.
Although they have masses of tens to hundreds of times that of Earth, gas giants such as Jupiter and Saturn are mostly composed of huge gas envelopes around a small rocky core, which may not be much larger than the diameter of the Earth.
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