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PRL team discovers TOI-6038A b, a dense exoplanet orbiting an F-type star, revealing insights.
A group of researchers from the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) in Ahmedabad has discovered something revolutionary beyond the Solar System. They have found a giant planet, called TOI-6038A b, that is bigger than Earth but smaller than Saturn. This sub-Saturn planet has a mass of 78.5 Earth masses and a radius of 6.41 Earth radii. It circles an F-type star, hotter and brighter than the Sun but not as severe as the hottest stars. The brightness of the star is between 1.5 and 5 times brighter than the Sun.
TOI-6038A b orbits its parent star in a circular orbit with a period of 5.83 days. The planet resides in a binary system, where its companion TOI-6038B is a K-type star at 3,217 AU. The finding is interesting because TOI-6038A b fills the transition area between Neptune-mass planets and gas giants and offers a prime chance to analyze planetary formation and evolution, an entry not in our Solar System.
The exoplanet was discovered with the cutting-edge PARAS-2 spectrograph mounted on PRL's 2.5-meter telescope at Mount Abu Observatory. This is the second exoplanet to be discovered with the PARAS-2 spectrograph, which is Asia's highest-resolution stabilized radial velocity spectrograph. The research has been published in The Astronomical Journal.
Scientists propose that TOI-6038A b would have a gigantic rocky core, constituting approximately three-fourths of its mass. The brightness of the system and its distinctive features make it a great target for future atmospheric research and exoplanet migration studies. This finding is a testament to India's increasing ability in sophisticated astronomical instrumentation and its increasing contribution to international space exploration.
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