Free Astronomy Magazine January-February 2025

41 ASTRO PUBLISHING searchers found that the external protoplanetary disc surrounding this star is miss-aligned, and is seen al- most face on, instead of being in a more inclined position which is more usual statistically. In addition they detected a very weak inner disc. This combination allowed them to observer the transiting protoplanet IRAS 04125+2902 b. The study showed that this planet has an or- bital period of 8.83 days, a radius 10.7 times bigger than that of the Earth, and has a mass approximately 30% of the mass of Jupiter. The au- thors of the article suggest that the baby planet or protoplanet could be a predecessor to “super-Earths” or to “sub-Neptunes”, which are often found orbiting stars on the main se- quence: those which are burning hy- drogen. They infer this because the planet is still in the process of con- traction, and its final size is expected to be smaller than its presently measured size. Given the youth of this star and of the new planet, the favorable geometry of the disc and the relative proximity to the Earth, the authors suggest that this system could be useful for the study of the early stages of the formation of planets. The researcher Enric Pallé explains that: “This planet can help us to understand the first stages of the evolution of planetary atmos- pheres, because it is during the first years of formation when a major part (or even all) of these atmos- pheres can be lost into space, due to interaction with the host star. This determines the type of planets which we find after these first for- mation phases.” ! F ictional representation of the young system IRAS 04125+2902. [NASA/JPL- Caltech/R. Hurt, K. Miller (Caltech/IPAC)]