A collision between two planets may have given rise to a new exoplanet

A group of researchers discovered a new super-dense exoplanet, which led them to believe that it was much larger and more gaseous, until it collided at high speed with another body at some point in its past. This event removed the planet’s light atmosphere and water, leaving behind a world rich in rocks.

TOI-1853b is slightly smaller than Neptune, but it is about twice as dense as Earth, and by comparison, the last planet in the solar system is three times less dense. These characteristics indicate that its composition is rich in rocks and that its formation did not occur in a traditional way.

TOI-1853b Features:

• Diameter: 44,087 kilometers (3.46 larger than Earth)
• Orbit: 1.24 Earth days
• Mass: 73.2 Earth’s mass
• Density: 9.7g/cm3 (more dense than steel)

This finding contradicts what was thought about planets that have this type of composition. They usually become gas giants with a density close to that of water, like Jupiter, but TOI-1853b was not.

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Collision of giant planets

In a study recently published in the journal natureThe researchers suggest that the planet is the core of a much larger world, which lost its atmosphere through an extremely violent event.

During a simulation where they modeled the impact of two giant planets, the researchers found that TOI-1853b was likely rich in water and collided at about 75 kilometers per second.

The researchers now hope to continue monitoring the super-dense planet to understand its composition and search for traces of the atmosphere. This future analysis will be able to establish whether TOI-1853b did indeed undergo a violent collision.

We had not investigated such large and severe impacts before, because they were unexpected. Much work needs to be done to improve the physical models underlying our simulations and to scale up model extreme giant effects.

Zoe Lenhardt, author of Discovery, in a statement

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