Primeval Planet
Mind-boggling
The planet exists in an unlikely place. Astronomers assumed the gravitational interactions in a globular cluster -- M4 contains 100,000 tightly packed stars -- would rip planetary systems apart.
"This is tremendously encouraging that planets are probably abundant in globular star clusters," said study team member Harvey Richer of the University of British Columbia.
But it’s the objects apparent history that has astronomers reeling.
"The fact that this system managed to form a gas-giant planet 12.7 billion years ago certainly boggles the minds of those of us who are used to having a hard time going back just 4.5 billion years in time," said Alan Boss, a leading planet-formation theorist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
Boss, who was not involved in the discovery, said the tortured history of the system implies there is no life there now. And back when it formed, there would have been less rock -- the stuff of a terrestrial planet -- because heavier elements form with subsequent generations of stars.
But there would have been some rock, and Boss agrees that the discovery suggests life might have had a chance.
"If there were gas giants around at 12.7 billion years ago, I would think that there could be a few terrestrial-like planets too," Boss said in an e-mail interview. "Presumably some of them [would have] experienced a more gentle history than this poor world, and so some might have experienced some sort of flirtation with life, if not something much more serious."
space.com |
