WEBVTT 1 00:00:03.439 --> 00:00:07.719 Welcome to Bedtime Astronomy. Explore the wonders of the cosmos 2 00:00:07.759 --> 00:00:12.279 with our soothing Bedtime Astronomie podcast. Each episode offers a 3 00:00:12.359 --> 00:00:16.320 gentle journey through the stars, planets, and beyond, perfect for 4 00:00:16.399 --> 00:00:20.239 unwinding after a long day. Let's travel through the mysteries 5 00:00:20.239 --> 00:00:22.440 of the universe as you drift off into a peaceful 6 00:00:22.480 --> 00:00:23.800 slumber under the night sky. 7 00:00:26.960 --> 00:00:31.719 Imagine looking at a star system that is practically an infant, 8 00:00:32.200 --> 00:00:33.880 like just a few hundred thousand years. 9 00:00:33.759 --> 00:00:37.119 Old, right in cosmic terms, That star has barely even 10 00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:38.560 ignited exactly. 11 00:00:38.880 --> 00:00:42.159 The surrounding disk of dust and gas is still chaotic, 12 00:00:42.280 --> 00:00:46.399 it's hot, and it's incredibly thick, and yet orbiting incredibly 13 00:00:46.399 --> 00:00:49.719 close to this baby star, you see a massive, fully 14 00:00:49.759 --> 00:00:51.320 formed gas giant. 15 00:00:51.439 --> 00:00:53.960 Yeah, a planet four times the mass of Jupiter, just 16 00:00:53.960 --> 00:00:55.399 sitting right there in the data. 17 00:00:55.520 --> 00:00:58.960 According to every established law of physics, every textbook on 18 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:02.520 planetary formation we have, and every mathematical model we spent 19 00:01:02.600 --> 00:01:05.280 the last century perfecting, that planet should not exist for 20 00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:06.319 another ten million years. 21 00:01:06.359 --> 00:01:07.400 It absolutely shouldn't. 22 00:01:07.400 --> 00:01:10.200 It's impossible, and yet it's there. Welcome to March twenty 23 00:01:10.239 --> 00:01:10.719 twenty six. 24 00:01:10.879 --> 00:01:13.519 It really is the ultimate paradox in modern astronomy. Right 25 00:01:13.560 --> 00:01:16.599 now we are staring at a cosmic impossibility that just 26 00:01:16.879 --> 00:01:18.120 refuses to go away. 27 00:01:18.239 --> 00:01:21.599 It's wild. Yeah, because for decades the astrophysical community has 28 00:01:21.640 --> 00:01:26.040 operated under this relatively stable paradigm regarding how solar systems 29 00:01:26.040 --> 00:01:26.920 actually come into being. 30 00:01:27.040 --> 00:01:31.000 Right, Yeah, the timeline was considered totally non negotiable. Building 31 00:01:31.040 --> 00:01:35.000 a planet, particularly a massive gas giant, is this incredibly slow, 32 00:01:35.280 --> 00:01:36.719 painstaking process. 33 00:01:37.079 --> 00:01:42.000 Right You're accumulating microscopic dust grains into pebbles, and then 34 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:46.239 pebbles into boulders and eventually forming a core massive enough 35 00:01:46.519 --> 00:01:49.040 to sweep up a thick atmosphere exactly. 36 00:01:49.439 --> 00:01:52.840 So, finding a fully formed gas giant around a star 37 00:01:53.120 --> 00:01:56.359 this young is well, it's like walking into a delivery 38 00:01:56.439 --> 00:01:59.040 room and finding a newborn baby with a master's degree 39 00:01:59.040 --> 00:01:59.959 in astrophysics. 40 00:02:00.200 --> 00:02:03.319 That that is a perfect analogy. The timeline is just completely. 41 00:02:02.920 --> 00:02:04.120 Shattered, totally shattered. 42 00:02:04.159 --> 00:02:06.879 Okay, let's unpack this. We're going out to the absolute 43 00:02:06.959 --> 00:02:10.080 bleeding edge of current human knowledge today. We need to 44 00:02:10.120 --> 00:02:12.680 look exactly at what it means when an observation is 45 00:02:12.680 --> 00:02:16.400 officially declared to quote defy planetary formation. 46 00:02:16.199 --> 00:02:17.879 Which is a heavy phrase in science. 47 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:20.319 It really is. So we're going to dive deep into 48 00:02:20.319 --> 00:02:23.599 the specific mechanics of this newly announced discovery from the 49 00:02:23.719 --> 00:02:25.479 Chaps based telescope. 50 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:29.240 And we'll explore the shock waves this single anomalous piece 51 00:02:29.280 --> 00:02:32.400 of data is sending through laboratories and observatories around the 52 00:02:32.400 --> 00:02:33.159 globe right now. 53 00:02:33.360 --> 00:02:36.680 Yeah, and most importantly, we're going to look at why 54 00:02:37.039 --> 00:02:40.199 breaking the fundamental rules of the cosmos is actually the 55 00:02:40.199 --> 00:02:43.680 most thrilling, vital thing that can possibly happen in the 56 00:02:43.719 --> 00:02:45.039 scientific process. 57 00:02:44.759 --> 00:02:48.960 Because the scientific method really thrives on friction. When observation 58 00:02:49.080 --> 00:02:52.639 aligns perfectly with theory, I mean, it's comforting. 59 00:02:52.199 --> 00:02:54.319 Sure that it doesn't push the boundaries right. 60 00:02:54.199 --> 00:02:56.919 Exactly, it doesn't push our understanding at all. It's only 61 00:02:56.960 --> 00:03:00.520 when our map of reality completely fails to match the 62 00:03:00.639 --> 00:03:03.080 territory we're observing that true discovery happens. 63 00:03:03.280 --> 00:03:08.080 An incomplete or broken map is basically an invitation to 64 00:03:08.120 --> 00:03:09.520 redraw the universe. 65 00:03:09.520 --> 00:03:11.439 And Teops has just handed us a piece of the 66 00:03:11.520 --> 00:03:14.080 territory that makes absolutely no sense on our current map. 67 00:03:14.360 --> 00:03:17.080 So let's start by grounding this in this specific instrument 68 00:03:17.120 --> 00:03:19.919 that through this curveball, Because to understand the break in 69 00:03:19.960 --> 00:03:22.439 the rules, we really have to understand the observer. 70 00:03:22.479 --> 00:03:24.240 Right, the tool making the observation. 71 00:03:24.520 --> 00:03:28.199 Yeah, the announcement that just dropped centers on data from 72 00:03:28.319 --> 00:03:33.439 the Characterizing Exoplanet Satellite or CHOPS CHIOPS. Yeah. And for 73 00:03:33.520 --> 00:03:36.840 anyone following exoplanet science, you know, CHIOPS isn't out there 74 00:03:36.879 --> 00:03:39.800 blindly sweeping the sky hoping to get lucky like Kepler 75 00:03:40.080 --> 00:03:40.639 test did. 76 00:03:40.919 --> 00:03:44.639 No, not at all. It is a highly specialized precision 77 00:03:44.759 --> 00:03:45.639 follow up mission. 78 00:03:45.800 --> 00:03:49.479 Right. It deliberately targets stars we already know have planets, 79 00:03:49.759 --> 00:03:51.800 and it measures them with a level of accuracy that 80 00:03:51.919 --> 00:03:53.960 is frankly hard to comprehend. 81 00:03:54.199 --> 00:03:57.520 That distinction is crucial. CHEOPS is not a discovery engine. 82 00:03:57.560 --> 00:03:59.120 It is a refinement engine. 83 00:03:59.159 --> 00:04:00.919 Okay, tell us about the actual hardware. 84 00:04:01.360 --> 00:04:05.680 Well, its primary instrument is a Richie Critian telescope feeding 85 00:04:05.719 --> 00:04:09.879 into a single incredibly sensitive charge couple device or CCD 86 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:12.800 a CCD right, Yeah, And it operates on the principle 87 00:04:12.800 --> 00:04:14.560 of transit photometry. 88 00:04:14.039 --> 00:04:15.199 So looking for shadows. 89 00:04:15.319 --> 00:04:18.240 Essentially, basically, when a planet crosses the face of its 90 00:04:18.240 --> 00:04:21.160 host star from our line of sight, it blocks a 91 00:04:21.240 --> 00:04:24.839 minuscule fraction of that star's light. We are talking about 92 00:04:24.920 --> 00:04:28.120 measuring a dip in stellar brightness on the order of 93 00:04:28.279 --> 00:04:29.720 parts per million. 94 00:04:29.639 --> 00:04:32.399 Parts per million. I was actually looking at this supplementary 95 00:04:32.480 --> 00:04:35.720 data released with this announcement, and the error margins on 96 00:04:35.759 --> 00:04:38.360 the photometric data are insanely typed. 97 00:04:38.480 --> 00:04:39.519 Oh they're unbelievable. 98 00:04:39.759 --> 00:04:42.879 We are talking about an instrument precision of something like 99 00:04:43.040 --> 00:04:46.519 ten parts per million for a sun like star. To 100 00:04:46.519 --> 00:04:49.160 put that into perspective for you listening, that is essentially 101 00:04:49.160 --> 00:04:52.439 trying to measure the dimming of a car headlight in 102 00:04:52.519 --> 00:04:55.560 Los Angeles because a single mosquito flew in front of 103 00:04:55.600 --> 00:04:58.360 it while you're standing on a rooftop in New York City. 104 00:04:59.040 --> 00:05:03.199 That analogy perfectly captures the engineering triumph of this mission. 105 00:05:03.839 --> 00:05:06.720 Chi OPS achieves this precision because it operates in low 106 00:05:06.759 --> 00:05:10.439 Earth orbit, far above the atmospheric distortion that plagues our 107 00:05:10.480 --> 00:05:12.079 ground based telescopes. 108 00:05:12.319 --> 00:05:15.079 No twinkling stars to mess up the data exactly. 109 00:05:15.560 --> 00:05:18.120 Furthermore, it is deliberately defocused. 110 00:05:18.319 --> 00:05:21.040 Wait defocus. Why would you want a blurry telescope? 111 00:05:21.120 --> 00:05:24.399 It sounds counterintuitive, right, But instead of focusing the starlight 112 00:05:24.439 --> 00:05:27.319 into a sharp point, it spreads the light over many 113 00:05:27.319 --> 00:05:30.319 pixels on the detector. Oh, I see, yeah, this mitigates 114 00:05:30.319 --> 00:05:33.399 the effects of tiny pointing jitters from the spacecraft, and 115 00:05:33.480 --> 00:05:37.639 also any variations in individual pixel sensitivity. It allows for 116 00:05:37.680 --> 00:05:39.879 an ultra stable, ultra precise. 117 00:05:39.560 --> 00:05:42.480 Light curve, and the shape of that curve, like the 118 00:05:42.560 --> 00:05:45.360 depth of the transit, the slope of the ingress and 119 00:05:45.439 --> 00:05:48.920 egress as the planet enters and exits the stellar disc. 120 00:05:49.519 --> 00:05:52.319 That tells us the exact physical diameter of the planet 121 00:05:52.399 --> 00:05:53.279 relative to the star. 122 00:05:53.519 --> 00:05:58.120 Yes, exactly, But diameter alone isn't enough, which is where 123 00:05:58.160 --> 00:06:00.199 the broader astronomical community. 124 00:05:59.800 --> 00:06:02.199 Comes right, because you need more than just size. 125 00:06:02.360 --> 00:06:06.720 You take that incredibly precise volume measurement from SHEOPS and 126 00:06:06.759 --> 00:06:09.560 you combine it with the radial velocity data. 127 00:06:09.680 --> 00:06:12.120 That's the gravitational wobble of the host star, right. 128 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:17.000 Exactly, the wobble measured by ground based spectrographs like harpsor Espresso. 129 00:06:17.399 --> 00:06:22.439 Radio velocity gives you the planet's mass. Mass plus volume equals. 130 00:06:22.079 --> 00:06:23.959 Density, and density is the holy grail. 131 00:06:24.160 --> 00:06:26.040 It really is. It tells you if you are looking 132 00:06:26.120 --> 00:06:29.600 at a fluffy cloud of hydrogen, a dense cannon ball 133 00:06:29.639 --> 00:06:32.439 of iron, or you know, a deep ocean world. 134 00:06:32.639 --> 00:06:34.519 Right, But the tension we are looking at in March 135 00:06:34.560 --> 00:06:36.680 twenty twenty six isn't just about what the planet is 136 00:06:36.680 --> 00:06:38.560 made of. It's about the fact that it exists at 137 00:06:38.600 --> 00:06:39.759 all in its current environment. 138 00:06:39.920 --> 00:06:42.199 Yeah, that's the real issue here, because there. 139 00:06:42.079 --> 00:06:46.360 Is an enormous fundamental tension right now between observational astronomy, 140 00:06:47.160 --> 00:06:50.560 the hard, unyielding data streaming down from shell OPS, and 141 00:06:50.639 --> 00:06:52.079 theoretical physics. 142 00:06:51.639 --> 00:06:55.399 Which provides the complex mathematical frameworks for how matter is 143 00:06:55.439 --> 00:06:57.800 supposed to behave in a protoplanetary disc. 144 00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:03.480 Exactly. Theories of planetary formation are beautiful, highly balanced equations 145 00:07:03.519 --> 00:07:06.120 based on thermodynamics, fluidynamics, and. 146 00:07:06.079 --> 00:07:09.959 Gravity, and CHELOPS has just delivered a high resolution, undeniable 147 00:07:10.040 --> 00:07:14.240 profile of a celestial body that the math absolutely insists 148 00:07:14.360 --> 00:07:15.199 is impossible. 149 00:07:15.680 --> 00:07:18.439 I have to push back here, though, because my first 150 00:07:18.480 --> 00:07:22.639 instinct and probably yours listening to this, is profound skepticism. 151 00:07:22.720 --> 00:07:25.560 Of course, before we throw out a century of theoretical physics, 152 00:07:25.839 --> 00:07:29.439 shouldn't we interrogate the machine as the possible CHOALOPS just glitched. 153 00:07:29.519 --> 00:07:31.199 It's the first question everyone asks. 154 00:07:31.319 --> 00:07:33.800 I mean, we are talking about measuring ten parts per million. 155 00:07:34.120 --> 00:07:37.040 Could a stray cosmic ray have hit the CCD sensor 156 00:07:37.120 --> 00:07:38.399 at the exact wrong. 157 00:07:38.160 --> 00:07:40.959 Time, or you know, could the star itself be exhibiting 158 00:07:41.079 --> 00:07:43.399 extreme stellar activity right. 159 00:07:43.680 --> 00:07:47.879 Star spots, or massive solar flares that the software pipeline 160 00:07:47.920 --> 00:07:52.360 misinterpreted as a planetary transit. We have seen massive false 161 00:07:52.399 --> 00:07:53.560 alarms in physics before. 162 00:07:53.680 --> 00:07:54.519 Oh. Absolutely. 163 00:07:54.680 --> 00:07:58.079 You think back to the BIICP two announcement about primordial 164 00:07:58.120 --> 00:08:01.839 gravitational waves that turned out to be galactic dust, or 165 00:08:01.879 --> 00:08:04.639 the faster than light neutrinos in Italy that ended up 166 00:08:04.639 --> 00:08:06.319 being a loose fiber optic cable. 167 00:08:06.399 --> 00:08:07.439 I remember that cable. 168 00:08:07.600 --> 00:08:10.560 Yeah, so why are we so sure the telescope isn't 169 00:08:10.600 --> 00:08:11.360 just lying to us? 170 00:08:11.480 --> 00:08:14.959 What's fascinating here is that the scientific community's initial response 171 00:08:15.199 --> 00:08:17.920 is always exactly that ruthless stepticism. 172 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:19.040 They don't just accept it. 173 00:08:19.199 --> 00:08:22.360 No, astronomers do not want to rewrite the foundational textbooks. 174 00:08:22.600 --> 00:08:27.079 It is exhausting, career upending work in modern astrophysics. A 175 00:08:27.120 --> 00:08:30.439 discovery of this magnitude undergoes a gauntlet of validation that 176 00:08:30.519 --> 00:08:32.519 is almost adversarial in nature. 177 00:08:32.759 --> 00:08:34.039 Adversarial I like that. 178 00:08:34.200 --> 00:08:36.919 Yeah, when the anomalus like her was first downloaded, that 179 00:08:37.039 --> 00:08:40.440 chief science team didn't pop champagne. They immediately assumed they 180 00:08:40.440 --> 00:08:41.879 had made an error, So. 181 00:08:41.840 --> 00:08:44.000 They essentially tried to kill their own discovery. 182 00:08:44.159 --> 00:08:47.440 They spent months trying to destroy their own data. They 183 00:08:47.519 --> 00:08:51.879 ran rigorous to trending algorithms to isolate and remove any 184 00:08:51.919 --> 00:08:52.960 instrumental noise. 185 00:08:53.080 --> 00:08:55.279 Okay, so filtering out the static, right. 186 00:08:55.240 --> 00:08:58.039 They factored in the thermal stability of the telescope tube. 187 00:08:58.440 --> 00:09:02.000 They meticulously mapped the background sky to ensure a fainter 188 00:09:02.360 --> 00:09:06.879 eclipsing binary star in the distance wasn't contaminating the target 189 00:09:06.919 --> 00:09:07.679 star's pixels. 190 00:09:07.679 --> 00:09:10.600 Wow, so checking for photo bombers, basically exactly. 191 00:09:11.120 --> 00:09:14.919 And they modeled the host star's rotation and magnetic activity 192 00:09:14.919 --> 00:09:19.519 to separate starspot induce light variations from a true planetary transit. 193 00:09:19.799 --> 00:09:21.080 That is incredibly thorough. 194 00:09:21.120 --> 00:09:24.600 And then they handed the raw, unprocessed data to independent 195 00:09:24.840 --> 00:09:27.759 rival research teams and challenged them to process it using 196 00:09:27.919 --> 00:09:29.559 entirely different software pipelines. 197 00:09:29.600 --> 00:09:32.279 And every single time the planet was still there. The 198 00:09:32.360 --> 00:09:34.120 anomaly survived the gauntlet. 199 00:09:34.200 --> 00:09:38.399 The signal remained robust across every independent analysis. The transit 200 00:09:38.440 --> 00:09:40.679 depth is real, the orbital period is real. 201 00:09:40.960 --> 00:09:41.840 Okay. Wow. 202 00:09:41.879 --> 00:09:44.679 The fact that the European Space Agency and the global 203 00:09:44.679 --> 00:09:48.799 astrophysics community are stepping up to the podium and explicitly 204 00:09:48.840 --> 00:09:53.240 framing this as a discovery that quote defies formation, rather 205 00:09:53.279 --> 00:09:57.279 than quietly cataloging it as an unresolved data anomaly. That 206 00:09:57.320 --> 00:10:00.159 signifies the immense weight and the highly verified nature that 207 00:10:00.200 --> 00:10:01.200 she ops observation. 208 00:10:01.519 --> 00:10:04.480 So they didn't just check the metaphorical fiber optic cable. 209 00:10:04.879 --> 00:10:08.000 They rebuilt the entire interpretive framework from the ground up, 210 00:10:08.320 --> 00:10:10.519 and the impossible planet refuses to vanish. 211 00:10:10.840 --> 00:10:13.360 The data is solid. It is our theories that have 212 00:10:13.440 --> 00:10:15.840 suddenly become incredibly fragile. 213 00:10:15.519 --> 00:10:19.519 That sets the states perfectly. The observation is real, the 214 00:10:19.559 --> 00:10:22.960 anomaly is confirmed, so that forces us to move into 215 00:10:23.080 --> 00:10:24.279 the actual mechanics of. 216 00:10:24.279 --> 00:10:25.799 The mystery, right, the physics of it all. 217 00:10:25.879 --> 00:10:29.519 We need to deconstruct this idea of defiance, because to 218 00:10:29.639 --> 00:10:32.519 understand how a cosmic law is broken, you have to 219 00:10:32.519 --> 00:10:35.440 really understand the intricate machinery of the law itself. 220 00:10:35.559 --> 00:10:37.480 You have to know the rules before you can break them. 221 00:10:37.600 --> 00:10:40.799 Exactly, what does it actually mean to defy planetary formation? 222 00:10:41.519 --> 00:10:45.440 We weren't talking about a minor discrepancy like a planet 223 00:10:45.480 --> 00:10:47.919 having five percent more carbon than the models predicted. 224 00:10:48.200 --> 00:10:49.399 No, nothing that trivial. 225 00:10:49.960 --> 00:10:53.399 We are talking about a fundamental contradiction of the established 226 00:10:53.399 --> 00:10:58.759 sequence of how matter coalesces. From the void into a macroscopic. 227 00:10:58.080 --> 00:11:00.799 World to appreciate the defiance. So we really have to 228 00:11:00.799 --> 00:11:04.120 look deeply at the rule book. For decades, the undisputed 229 00:11:04.200 --> 00:11:07.840 champion of planetary formation theory has been the core accretion. 230 00:11:07.559 --> 00:11:08.600 Model core apcretion. 231 00:11:08.679 --> 00:11:12.600 Okay, it's the framework that successfully explain our own Solar system. 232 00:11:13.399 --> 00:11:19.840 Picture a newborn star surrounded by a protoplanetary disk, a massive, spinning, 233 00:11:20.080 --> 00:11:24.559 flattened cloud of leftover hydrogen, helium, and microscopic dust grains. 234 00:11:24.720 --> 00:11:27.519 Okay, I'm picturing a giant cosmic pancake around a light bulb. 235 00:11:27.799 --> 00:11:30.639 That works. Now, the physics of how you get from 236 00:11:30.639 --> 00:11:33.639 a microscopic dust grain to a gas giant like Jupiter 237 00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:36.559 is shockingly complex and fraught with bottlenecks. 238 00:11:36.639 --> 00:11:39.639 Well, it's not just gravity pulling things together from day one, right, Yeah, 239 00:11:39.639 --> 00:11:42.000 Because dust grains are way too small for their gravity 240 00:11:42.039 --> 00:11:43.039 to matter exactly. 241 00:11:43.279 --> 00:11:47.000 In the earliest stages, gravity is completely irrelevant the dust grains, 242 00:11:47.000 --> 00:11:50.840 which are essentially microscopic silicates and carbon compounds. They collide 243 00:11:51.000 --> 00:11:53.320 purely by chance as they are carried along by the 244 00:11:53.360 --> 00:11:54.759 gas currents in the disk. 245 00:11:54.840 --> 00:11:56.720 Just bumping into each other in the dark. 246 00:11:56.480 --> 00:11:59.879 Right, and when they collide, they stick together through electros 247 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:03.600 static forces than or Vall's forces. It is the exact 248 00:12:03.600 --> 00:12:07.360 same physics that causes dust bunnies to form under your bed. 249 00:12:07.440 --> 00:12:10.279 Okay, so cosmic dust bunnies. I can visualize that. 250 00:12:10.480 --> 00:12:16.039 These fractal, fluffy dust aggregates slowly grow over tens of 251 00:12:16.120 --> 00:12:18.720 thousands of years. They go from the size of a 252 00:12:18.759 --> 00:12:21.480 grain of sand to a pebble to something the size 253 00:12:21.480 --> 00:12:22.200 of a golf ball. 254 00:12:22.240 --> 00:12:25.519 But there's a massive physical hurdle they have to overcome. Here. 255 00:12:25.919 --> 00:12:28.879 I was reading about the meter sized barrier, which seems 256 00:12:28.919 --> 00:12:31.559 like the point where the entire process should theoretically just fail. 257 00:12:31.679 --> 00:12:33.720 Oh, the meter sized barrier is one of the most 258 00:12:33.799 --> 00:12:37.639 notoriously difficult problems in the core accretion model. As these 259 00:12:37.679 --> 00:12:40.480 clumps of dust grow to about a meter in size, 260 00:12:40.639 --> 00:12:43.759 like the size of a boulder, they decouple from the gas. 261 00:12:43.600 --> 00:12:46.440 Flow decouple, meaning they stop moving with the wind. 262 00:12:46.639 --> 00:12:50.120 Basically, the gas in the protoclanetary disk is supported by 263 00:12:50.159 --> 00:12:53.559 internal pressure, so it orbits the star slightly slower than 264 00:12:53.559 --> 00:12:56.840 a solid object would. Okay, Therefore, a meter sized boulder 265 00:12:56.879 --> 00:12:59.840 is orbiting faster than the gas around it. It experiences 266 00:12:59.840 --> 00:13:01.360 a constant headwind like. 267 00:13:01.399 --> 00:13:03.679 Riding a bike really fast on the still day, you 268 00:13:03.720 --> 00:13:05.120 feel the wind pushing. 269 00:13:04.840 --> 00:13:09.120 Back exactly and this headwind SAPs the boulder's orbital momentum, 270 00:13:09.399 --> 00:13:12.360 causing it to rapidly spiral inward and burn up in 271 00:13:12.440 --> 00:13:15.799 the host star. Mathematical models show that a meter sized 272 00:13:15.879 --> 00:13:18.399 rock should smiral into the star in just a few 273 00:13:18.559 --> 00:13:19.639 hundred years. 274 00:13:19.600 --> 00:13:23.840 Which is incredibly fast in astronomical terms, like the blink 275 00:13:23.879 --> 00:13:26.679 of an eye. So how does anything ever survive to 276 00:13:26.799 --> 00:13:30.320 become a planet? How do we get past that barrier? 277 00:13:30.720 --> 00:13:35.039 Nature requires a rapid, almost violent workaround. The current leading 278 00:13:35.080 --> 00:13:37.600 theory is that turbulence and eddies in the gas disk 279 00:13:37.960 --> 00:13:41.720 create localized pressure bumps, essentially cosmic traffic jams. 280 00:13:41.720 --> 00:13:43.399 Cosmic traffic jams, Okay. 281 00:13:43.159 --> 00:13:45.799 The boulders get trapped in these pressure bumps, accumulating in 282 00:13:45.960 --> 00:13:49.480 massive numbers until their collective gravitational pull finally kicks in. 283 00:13:49.679 --> 00:13:51.519 Huh So they gang up on the headwind. 284 00:13:51.639 --> 00:13:55.639 Right. This triggers a localized gravitational collapse instantly, bypassing the 285 00:13:55.639 --> 00:13:59.399 headwind problem and forming planet tesimals. These are solid bodies 286 00:13:59.440 --> 00:14:02.080 the size of use or small continents, ranging from ten 287 00:14:02.120 --> 00:14:03.720 to one hundred kilometers across. 288 00:14:03.960 --> 00:14:06.200 Okay, so now we have the building blocks. We have 289 00:14:06.320 --> 00:14:10.320 city sized asteroids crashing into each other. But building a 290 00:14:10.440 --> 00:14:14.440 rocky planet like Earth is vastly different from building a 291 00:14:14.440 --> 00:14:16.159 massive gas giant like Jupiter. 292 00:14:16.440 --> 00:14:17.399 Fundamentally different. 293 00:14:17.480 --> 00:14:21.120 Yeah, and location plays a critical role here. You can't 294 00:14:21.159 --> 00:14:22.440 just build a Jupiter anywhere. 295 00:14:22.559 --> 00:14:25.440 Location is everything, and it's governed by the concept of 296 00:14:25.480 --> 00:14:28.399 the frost line or snow line. As you move away 297 00:14:28.399 --> 00:14:31.080 from the intense heat of the young star, the temperature 298 00:14:31.159 --> 00:14:34.919 of the protoplanetary disc drops naturally at a certain distance. 299 00:14:34.919 --> 00:14:37.679 In our Solar System, it's roughly around the asteroid belt. 300 00:14:37.879 --> 00:14:41.240 It gets cold enough for volatile compounds like water, ammonia, 301 00:14:41.279 --> 00:14:44.559 and methane to freeze into solid ice greens, and. 302 00:14:44.600 --> 00:14:47.320 Ice is the game changer for building gas giants. 303 00:14:47.480 --> 00:14:50.639 It is the absolute catalyst. Inside the frost line, where 304 00:14:50.639 --> 00:14:53.120 it's too hot, planets can only be built from rocks 305 00:14:53.120 --> 00:14:55.039 and metals, silicates and iron, which. 306 00:14:54.919 --> 00:14:57.240 Are pretty rare, relatively speaking. 307 00:14:57.120 --> 00:15:00.039 Very rare. They comprise only about one percent of the 308 00:14:59.840 --> 00:15:02.559 ti total mass of the disc. That's why Earth, Venus, 309 00:15:02.559 --> 00:15:05.639 and Mars are relatively small. But outside the frost line, 310 00:15:05.679 --> 00:15:09.600 you suddenly have access to an enormous abundance of solid ice. 311 00:15:09.679 --> 00:15:13.120 Because all that water vapor suddenly becomes solid building material. 312 00:15:13.279 --> 00:15:17.679 Exactly, this provides four to five times more solid material 313 00:15:18.039 --> 00:15:22.039 Planetesimals outside the frost line can grow incredibly fast and 314 00:15:22.200 --> 00:15:23.360 incredibly massive. 315 00:15:23.519 --> 00:15:25.440 They enter a phase of runaway growth. 316 00:15:25.559 --> 00:15:29.799 Yes, once an icy rocky core reaches a critical threshold 317 00:15:30.279 --> 00:15:34.039 about ten times the mass of the Earth, its gravitational 318 00:15:34.080 --> 00:15:37.240 pull becomes so immense that it can begin to rapidly 319 00:15:37.320 --> 00:15:40.799 suck in the surrounding hydrogen and helium gas directly from 320 00:15:40.879 --> 00:15:42.279 the nebula. 321 00:15:41.759 --> 00:15:43.440 Just vacuuming up everything around it. 322 00:15:43.679 --> 00:15:47.440 This is the runaway gas accretion phase. Over the course 323 00:15:47.480 --> 00:15:50.960 of a few million years, this ten earth mass core 324 00:15:51.159 --> 00:15:54.120 sweeps up hundreds of Earth masses of gas, ballooning into 325 00:15:54.120 --> 00:15:55.360 a Jupiter or a Saturn. 326 00:15:55.399 --> 00:15:55.679 Wow. 327 00:15:55.919 --> 00:15:58.960 But here is the absolute bedrock requirement of the core 328 00:15:58.960 --> 00:16:02.320 accretion model. This entire process takes time. It takes at 329 00:16:02.399 --> 00:16:04.600 least two to five million years for the core to 330 00:16:04.600 --> 00:16:07.960 grow large enough to initiate runaway gas secretion. 331 00:16:07.720 --> 00:16:09.960 And the clock is kicking the entire time right Because 332 00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:12.000 the protoplanetary disc doesn't last forever. 333 00:16:12.159 --> 00:16:15.000 The disc is highly transient. The young host star is 334 00:16:15.039 --> 00:16:18.919 blasting out intense ultraviolet radiation and powerful stellar winds. 335 00:16:18.840 --> 00:16:22.320 So it's basically blowing away its own planetary building material exactly. 336 00:16:23.240 --> 00:16:27.799 This process, known as photoevaporation, is actively blowing the hydrogen 337 00:16:27.840 --> 00:16:32.120 and helium gas out of the system. Typically, a protoplanetary 338 00:16:32.200 --> 00:16:36.039 disc completely dissipates within three to ten million years. 339 00:16:35.960 --> 00:16:38.440 So it's a race against time, a literal race. 340 00:16:38.840 --> 00:16:42.320 If a planetary core doesn't reach the critical ten earth 341 00:16:42.399 --> 00:16:45.559 mass threshold before the gas is blown away, it fails 342 00:16:45.600 --> 00:16:48.200 to become a gas giant. It ends up as an 343 00:16:48.200 --> 00:16:51.799 ice giant like Uranus or Neptune, or just a barren rock. 344 00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:53.759 The timing must be perfect. 345 00:16:53.960 --> 00:16:57.799 Here's where it gets really interesting. We've established the unbreakable rules. 346 00:16:58.200 --> 00:17:00.840 You need millions of years to build the core, you 347 00:17:00.879 --> 00:17:03.240 need the cold temperatures beyond the frost line to get 348 00:17:03.240 --> 00:17:05.519 the ice to build that core quickly, and you have 349 00:17:05.559 --> 00:17:08.680 a strict deadline before the star bows all the gas away. Now, 350 00:17:08.759 --> 00:17:11.720 let's bring in the specific Sheops discovery from March twenty 351 00:17:11.759 --> 00:17:12.319 twenty six. 352 00:17:12.480 --> 00:17:13.680 This is where it all falls apart. 353 00:17:13.720 --> 00:17:16.079 We're looking at a host star. There is only three 354 00:17:16.119 --> 00:17:18.440 hundred thousand to five hundred thousand years old. It is 355 00:17:18.480 --> 00:17:21.279 an infant. It is still practically in a stellar womb, 356 00:17:21.480 --> 00:17:26.160 and yet orbiting at an incredibly close distance, well inside 357 00:17:26.160 --> 00:17:28.680 the frost line in a region where the temperature would 358 00:17:28.720 --> 00:17:33.359 vaporize any ice. Is a fully formed massive gas giant. 359 00:17:33.559 --> 00:17:36.960 It is a devastating contradiction. A five hundred thousand year 360 00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:40.319 old star should only have microscopic dust grains or perhaps 361 00:17:40.359 --> 00:17:43.240 a few early planetesimals swirling around it. 362 00:17:43.240 --> 00:17:45.079 Dust bunnies, not jupiters. 363 00:17:45.200 --> 00:17:48.279 Right, the gas giant we are observing has bypassed millions 364 00:17:48.319 --> 00:17:53.960 of years of necessary evolutionary steps. Furthermore, its location is entirely. 365 00:17:53.599 --> 00:17:55.240 Wrong because it's too close to the heat. 366 00:17:55.319 --> 00:17:57.799 Being that close to the star inside the frost line, 367 00:17:57.839 --> 00:18:00.319 there simply wasn't enough solid rock and metal to build 368 00:18:00.359 --> 00:18:03.480 the critical ten earth mass core required to capture the gas. 369 00:18:03.799 --> 00:18:06.200 The math does not work. You cannot build a planet 370 00:18:06.240 --> 00:18:08.279 of that mass in that location in that amount of 371 00:18:08.319 --> 00:18:10.319 time using the core accretion model. 372 00:18:10.519 --> 00:18:13.319 So if the established recipe is wrong, we're forced to 373 00:18:13.319 --> 00:18:17.000 speculate on alternative mechanisms. If it didn't form slowly from 374 00:18:17.039 --> 00:18:18.880 the bottom up, how did it get there? 375 00:18:18.920 --> 00:18:20.359 We have to look at other options. 376 00:18:20.839 --> 00:18:23.000 I know There is an alternative theory that often gets 377 00:18:23.000 --> 00:18:27.079 discussed for massive planets far away from their stars called 378 00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:32.680 disk instability. Could that apply here? Could a planet form 379 00:18:32.759 --> 00:18:34.640 top down like a star does. 380 00:18:34.839 --> 00:18:38.599 Disk instability is the primary alternative to core accretion, and 381 00:18:38.680 --> 00:18:41.960 it is certainly dominating the frantic discussions right now. 382 00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:42.720 How does that work? 383 00:18:43.000 --> 00:18:46.160 Well? In the disk instability model, you don't need to 384 00:18:46.279 --> 00:18:50.960 slowly build a rocky core. Instead, if the protoplanetary disk 385 00:18:51.079 --> 00:18:54.440 is massive enough and cold enough, a localized region of 386 00:18:54.480 --> 00:18:57.519 the gas can become gravitationally unstable. 387 00:18:57.039 --> 00:18:58.640 Like a sinkhole forming in the gas. 388 00:18:58.839 --> 00:19:02.119 Kind of yeah, it wrapdly, fragments and collapses in on itself, 389 00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:04.759 forming a massive gas giant in a matter of thousands 390 00:19:04.759 --> 00:19:08.119 of years rather than millions. It bypasses the pebble accretion, 391 00:19:08.279 --> 00:19:10.960 the meter sized barrier, and the core building entirely. 392 00:19:11.279 --> 00:19:14.640 It's essentially a shortcut. The gas just instantly crushes itself 393 00:19:14.640 --> 00:19:16.799 into a planet. But wait, you said it requires the 394 00:19:16.839 --> 00:19:20.039 disk to be cold enough. Yes, this chi Oups planet 395 00:19:20.119 --> 00:19:22.680 is sitting incredibly close to the young star. The ambient 396 00:19:22.720 --> 00:19:26.200 temperature from stellar irradiation would be massive. Doesn't heat prevent 397 00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:27.640 gas from collapsing. 398 00:19:27.440 --> 00:19:31.000 That is the exact friction point of this hypothesis. Thermal 399 00:19:31.000 --> 00:19:34.079 pressure pushes outward. For a gas cloud to collapse under 400 00:19:34.119 --> 00:19:36.759 its own gravity, it must be able to radiate away 401 00:19:36.880 --> 00:19:38.319