Astrophysicists crack Jumbo code: Birth of free-floating binary giants revealed

Researchers have introduced a theoretical process by which free floating giant binary planets can form. (Image Credit: UNLV).

Key Highlights

• Close stellar encounters within dense clusters can spontaneously eject pairs of giant planets.
• This finding significantly alters our perception of planetary dynamics and the diversity of planetary systems in the universe.
• The research suggests that such events are more likely to occur within densely populated star clusters.

New Delhi: The James Webb Space Telescope has revealed a potential new class of candidate giant planets that are floating freely through the cosmos, gravitationally untethered to any host star. These new candidate exoplanets are known as Jupiter-mass binary objects or JuMBOs. These binary systems challenge conventional theories on how planetary systems form and evolve. However, a new study advances a compelling model for the formation of JuMBOs.

Researchers from the University of Nevada in Las Vegas and Stony Brook University used techniques known as direct N-body simulations to investigate how interactions within dense star clusters can lead to the ejection of giant planets, that subsequently remain gravitationally bound to each other. The research fills a critical gap in the conventional understanding of star formation.

Star clusters are either open or closed, and consist of up to a million stars that are gravitationally bound to each other. Open clusters tend to drift apart over time, while the stars in globular clusters remain together for billions of years. These globular clusters have a roughly spherical shape, with the density of stars increasing towards the centres. All the stars in a cluster are born around the same time, from the same molecular cloud or stellar nursery.

There may be many more JuMBOs waiting to be discovered

A paper describing the findings has been published in Nature Astronomy. Corresponding author of the study, Yihan Wang says, "Our simulations demonstrate that close stellar encounters can spontaneously eject pairs of giant planets from their native systems, leading them to orbit each other in space. These findings could significantly alter our perception of planetary dynamics and the diversity of planetary systems in our universe."

The research suggests that the processes that lead to the ejection of binary pairs of giant planets are more likely to take place in densely populated star clusters, hinting that these types of systems may be far more common than previously believed. The James Webb Space Telescope continues to improve our understanding of star system formation and evolution.

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