Astronomers discovered a marshmallow-like planet, called TOI-3757 b, orbiting a cool red dwarf star using the WIYN 3.5-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. This exoplanet is located approximately 580 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Auriga the Charioteer and is currently the lowest-density planet ever detected around a red dwarf star, with an average density similar to that of a marshmallow.
The next step is figuring out how TOI-3757 b, a gas-giant planet, can form around a red dwarf star, especially one with such low-density. They propose that one reason could be the rocky core of the planet, which rapidly pulls in large amounts of neighboring gas to form the gas giant. Another theory is the planet’s orbit, which is tentatively thought to be slightly elliptical, causing it to get closer to its star than at other times, resulting in substantial excess heating that can cause the planet’s atmosphere to bloat. Then there’s this white dwarf star tearing up a planetary system.
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Giant planets around red dwarf stars have traditionally been thought to be hard to form. So far this has only been looked at with small samples from Doppler surveys, which typically have found giant planets further away from these red dwarf stars. Until now we have not had a large enough sample of planets to find close-in gas planets in a robust manner,” said Shubham Kanodia, a researcher at Carnegie Institution for Science’s Earth and Planets Laboratory.
