[The Epoch Times, November 7, 2022](The Epoch Times reporter Chen Juncun reported) Many people want to stay young forever and are always looking for ways to fight aging. Meanwhile, German scientists have uncovered the secret to keeping “stars” young — some planets can slow the aging process of their stars — and have found the best evidence yet.
Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, scientists at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam in Germany have found some hot Jupiters. Jupiter) can make parent stars younger.
The so-called hot Jupiters are exoplanet gas giants, mainly composed of hydrogen and helium, whose planetary orbits are no closer to their parent star than Mercury is to the sun.
Although scientists have seen the anti-aging properties of hot Jupiters before, this is the first time this peculiar phenomenon has been systematically recorded, making it the strongest evidence ever recorded, the observatory’s website reported on November 2.
A hot Jupiter may tidally influence its parent star, causing it to spin faster, become more active, and produce more X-rays, usually signs of a younger star.
However, just like humans, the vitality of stars can be affected by many factors. All stars slow down their rotation and activity as they age, and their number of X-ray bursts decreases. Because the age of most stars is difficult to determine, it is difficult for scientists to tell whether a star is active because it is young, or because it is influenced by nearby planets.
To solve this problem, researchers at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics observed multiple binary star systems. In such a system, the two stars are far apart, and one of the stars has a hot Jupiter orbiting it.
Scientists know that the two stars of a binary system formed at the same time, just like human twins. The two stars are far apart so they don’t affect each other, and a hot Jupiter on one of the stars doesn’t affect the other. This means that the star without the hot Jupiter can be used as a control group.
The researchers say it’s a lot like having twins live in separate areas to study how their health is affected. By comparing the two stars in a binary system, they can see how they differ.
In this study, the researchers used X-rays to determine whether or not stars appeared young. They studied about three dozen binary star systems. It turned out that stars with hot Jupiters tend to emit brighter X-rays and are therefore more active and younger than their companions without hot Jupiters (the other star in the binary system).
The researchers say they hope to conduct more studies in the future to better understand the peculiar phenomenon.
Responsible editor: Sun Yun #