Another reason for this hot Neptune being so rare is because the area close to the star is often referred to as ‘Neptune desert’ by the astronomers. Dubbed NGTS-4b, this planet is the first to be discovered in the so-called “Neptunian desert” (sometimes also called the sub-Saturn desert”). LTT 9779b exists in the ‘Neptunian Desert’, a region devoid of planets when we look at the population of planetary masses and sizes. “As someone who studies these, there’s just a lot of interesting planetary science we can do in measuring the properties of these planets — just like people study the atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn and Venus — even though we don’t think those will host life,” he said. “This planet doesn’t have a solid surface, and it’s much hotter even than Mercury in our solar system — not only would lead melt in the atmosphere of this planet but so would platinum, chromium and stainless steel,” Crossfield said. KU said the findings concern the recently found planet LTT 9779b and were published in Astrophysical Journal Letters. As Neptune-sized planets should be easier to find in short-period orbits, and many sufficiently massive planets have been discovered with longer orbits from surveys such as CoRoT and Kepler. 6 hours ago | 0 view “This 'improbable planet' is likely so rare that we won't find another laboratory quite like it to study the nature of ultra-hot Neptunes in detail. “Infrared light tells you the temperature of something and where the hotter and cooler parts of this planet are — on Earth, it’s not hottest at noon; it’s hottest a couple of hours into the afternoon. These planets include HD149026b 3, which is thought to have an unusually massive core, and recent discoveries such as LTT9779b 4 and NGTS-4b 5, on which photoevaporation has removed a substantial part of … All of the previously known ultra-short-period planets are either hot Jupiters, with sizes above 10 Earth radii (Re), or apparently rocky planets smaller than 2 Re. This newly-discovered Hot Neptune is one of space’s most unlikely planets ... An ultrahot Neptune in the Neptune desert, Nature Astronomy (2020). It said Crossfiled and his coauthors used “phase curve” analysis in order to parse the exoplanet’s atmospheric makeup. DOI: 10.1038/s41550-020-1142-z. “One notable example is the existence of the ‘hot Neptune desert,’ or the lack of planets the size and mass of Neptune on periods shorter than 4 days. “A year on this planet is less than 24 hours — that’s how quickly it’s whipping around its star. This so-called desert of hot Neptunes shows that such alien worlds are rare, or, they were plentiful at one time, but have since disappeared. “If anyone is going to believe what astronomers say about finding signs of life or oxygen on other worlds, we’re going to have to show we can actually do it right on the easy stuff first,” he said. According to modelling used by the team, the density of the planet suggests it should have been able to accrete lots of hydrogen and helium gas, … The University of Kansas says a team led by one of its astronomers has crunched data from NASA’s TESS and Spitzer telescopes to portray for the first time the atmosphere of a highly unusual kind of exoplanet that has been named ‘hot Neptune.’. An international team of astronomers, including a group from the University of Warwick, have discovered the first Ultra Hot Neptune planet orbiting the nearby star LTT 9779. Indeed, most close-in hot exoplanets are either gas giants the size of Jupiter or Saturn that have enough mass to retain most of their atmosphere using their high gravity against the evaporation caused by the star, or small rocky exoplanets that have lost their atmosphere to the star long ago. It exists in the “hot-Neptune desert” region around its star — a place where astronomers don’t typically find this type of planet because they get shredded by the neighboring massive furnace. The exoplanet named as Planet LTT 9779b was investigated using phase curve … The planet is found in the “hot Neptune desert,” where planets shouldn’t exist. ... An ultrahot Neptune in the Neptune desert, Nature Astronomy (2020). Even for the planets in the Solar System, difficulties in observation lead to large uncertainties in the properties of planetary cores. According to KU, readings of the planet’s temperature is seen as a way to characterize its atmosphere. He said astronomers call it the “hot Neptune desert.” “We think this is because hot Neptunes aren’t massive enough to avoid substantial atmospheric evaporation and mass loss,” he said. “One notable example is the existence of the ‘hot Neptune desert,’ or the lack of planets the size and mass of Neptune on periods shorter than 4 days. Now, scientists have discovered an exoplanet that sits right in the hot Neptune desert. Crossfield and his co-authors used a technique called “phase curve” analysis to parse the exoplanet’s atmospheric makeup. The team at the University of Kansas recently discovered one such hot Neptune from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and Spitzer mission’s data. Was it initially larger but has lost part of its original atmosphere? KU said Hot Neptune LTT 9779b was discovered in 2019 and became one of the first Neptune sized planets discovered by NASA’s all-sky Tess planet-hunting mission. Planet formation processes or evolution mechanisms are surmised to be at the origin of the hot Neptune desert. If so, then why is its atmosphere not just a scaled-down version of the atmospheres of ultra-hot larger exoplanets? The planet is found in the "hot Neptune desert," where planets shouldn't exist. Hot Neptunes are so rare that astronomers even refer to the area close to a star as a “Neptune desert. [1], "NGTS-4b: A sub-Neptune transiting in the desert", "The 'Forbidden' planet has been found in the 'Neptunian Desert, List of interstellar and circumstellar molecules, Exoplanetary Circumstellar Environments and Disk Explorer, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Neptunian_Desert&oldid=982223074, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 6 October 2020, at 21:13. 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