A newly discovered exoplanet has presented astronomers with an interesting problem.
These properties alone would make TOI-332b an object of interest, but there's something else. The gravitational effect on its host star has allowed Osborn and their team to measure the exoplanet's mass. It clocks in at 57.2 Earth masses. Neptune isThis means TOI-332b has a whopping density of 9.6 grams per cubic centimeter. That's one of the densest Neptune exoplanet masses ever found. Neptune itself has a density of 1.64 grams per cubic centimeter. Earth's is 5.51 grams.
For a world that close to its star, photoevaporation processes – where the extreme radiation from the star causes the atmosphere to evaporate and leak away – should occur. But photoevaporation alone cannot account for the loss of an atmosphere that size. In fact, it cannot account for most of it.
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