2023-07-19 12:45:15
« There are more things in Heaven and on Earth, Horatio, than your philosophy dreams of. “. No, this is not a comment from ChatGPT in response to a request from a certain Horatio who would have asked him what to think of the probable discovery announced by an ESO press release on July 19, 2023. He s t is a statement from Hamlet, or rather the one that Shakespeare puts in the mouth of his famous character.
Still, it illustrates well the announcement made by ESO that, according to the observations in the millimeter wave range made possible by the network of radio telescopes Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (Alma) in the Atacama Desert in Chile, astronomers would have proof for the first time that two exoplanets can share the same orbit as they explain in an article published in Astronomy & Astrophysics. This is not the case for any of the main planets of the Solar System and it had never really been observed in the world of exoplanets…until now.
An anti-Earth on a Lagrange point
We can therefore now make a connection with the counter-Earth, also called the anti-Earth in reference to a belief of the Pythagorean Greek astronomers of Antiquity, of the Marvel Universe and of which we saw a version in the last opus of the Guardians of the Galaxy. It is presented there as a sort of copy of the Earth and therefore in the same orbit as it but which cannot be seen from the Earth because it is always in opposition to it on the other side of the Sun.
This is not a surprise to everyone, as Olga Balsalobre-Ruza explains in the press release from ESO, a student at the Center for Astrobiology in Madrid (Spain) and who led the article published today : “ Twenty years ago, theory predicted that pairs of planets of similar mass could share the same orbit around their star, known as Trojan or co-orbital planets. For the first time, we found evidence in favor of this idea ».
Recall that, in the case of the Solar System, as explained in the video below, so-called Trojan asteroids are found on the Lagrange points L4 and L5 of the orbit of a planet orbiting the Sun. The most famous Trojans are those of Jupiter. L4 and L5 are points in the rotating frame of reference in the plane of a planet that they accompany around a more massive main body like the Sun for Jupiter but also the Earth. The sum of the gravitational attractions of the two stars tends to trap small bodies there and this is how there are about 12,000 in the case of Jupiter.
You may know the L5s on Earth, but do you know the five L-points in space? These are the Lagrange points and they are very useful for positioning certain satellites… or space telescopes like Webb. The space to be In fact ! We explain it all to you in this video. © Cnes
An exotroyan in formation or destroyed?
The concept of Lagrange points can be transposed to extrasolar planets, which has therefore been done but ” the exotroyiennes [Ndlr : planètes troyennes situées en dehors du Système solaire] have so far been like unicorns: their existence was allowed by theory, but no one had ever detected them “, always explains in the press release of the ESO Jorge Lillo-Box, co-author of the study and researcher at the Center of Astrobiology of Madrid.
If the researchers are correct, then, they would have found a first exoplanet candidate by once again examining the exoplanet system of PDS 70, a young star known to host two giant Jupiter-like planets, PDS 70b and PDS 70c, and which Futura had already talked about in several articles.
Astronomers have indeed detected with Alma the probable signature at point L5 of PDS 70b of a cloud of rocky and dusty debris with a mass that can reach approximately twice that of our Moon. It could be either the remains of a destructive collision between two exoplanets or the remains of the formation of an exotroyan.
Thanks to Alma (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array), astronomers have discovered a possible “sister” planet orbiting a distant star. This video summarizes the discovery. To obtain a fairly accurate French translation, click on the white rectangle at the bottom right. The English subtitles should then appear. Then click on the nut to the right of the rectangle, then on “Subtitles” and finally on “Translate automatically”. Choose “French”. © ESO
If there are real exo-Earths somewhere in the Universe and if exo-Earths also exist, then we begin to dream that reality meets fiction with two exo-Earths sharing the same orbit and two forms of intelligent life that could have developed in these two worlds, which is what makes Olga Balsalobre-Ruza say: ” Who could imagine two worlds sharing the same length of year and the same conditions of habitability? Our work is the first proof that this type of world could exist. We can imagine that a planet shares its orbit with thousands of asteroids, as is the case for Jupiter, but I am amazed to see that planets can share the same orbit ».
It remains to fully confirm this possible detection of an exotroyan as indicated by the ESO press release which explains that astronomers will still have to wait until the date when they will use Alma again to see if PDS 70b and the cloud of debris associated with it move significantly in their common orbit around the star.
In the meantime, as explained respectively by Nuria Huélamo, researcher at the Astrobiology Center, co-author of the study and Itziar De Gregorio-Monsalvo, head of the ESO science office in Chile, who also contributed to this research: ” Our research is a first step in the search for co-orbital planets at a very early stage of their formation. [et] it raises new questions about the formation of the Trojans, their evolution and their frequency in different planetary systems. The future of this domain is very promising and we look forward to Alma’s capacity expansion, planned for 2030, which will greatly improve the network’s ability to characterize Trojans around many other stars. ».
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