We may have the first concrete evidence of 'mind-blowing' Trojan exoplanets.
"Two decades ago, it was predicted in theory that pairs of planets of similar mass may share the same orbit around their star, the so-called Trojan or co-orbital planets. For the first time, we have found evidence in favor of that idea," explained Olga Balsalobre-Ruza, a student at the Centre for Astrobiology in Madrid, Spain, who led the paper.
"Exotrojans [Trojan planets outside the Solar System] have so far been like unicorns: they are allowed to exist by theory, but no one has ever detected them," explained co-author Jorge Lillo-Box, a senior researcher at the Centre for Astrobiology.The team behind the new paper has presented their discovery using ALMA, which they argue provides the strongest observational evidence to date that Trojan planets exist.
In this ALMA image, PD70b is highlighted by a yellow circle and the cloud of debris by a dotted yellow circle.The team found that the debris cloud has a mass of roughly two times that of our Moon. They believe it could point to an existing Trojan world in this system or at least one in the process of forming.
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