Planet from another galaxy visits Milky Way

These days, the discovery of yet another planet orbiting yet another distant star in our galaxy doesn’t seem out of the ordinary. The newly discovered planet has a mass at least 1.25 times that of Jupiter and orbits a star called HIP13044, a giant near the end of its life that is part of the “Helmi stream”. “This discovery is particularly intriguing when we consider the distant future of our own planetary system, as the Sun is also expected to become a red giant in about five billion years.” HIP13044b is relatively close to its star, say the scientists, at its closest approach reaching less than 0.055 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun, and taking just over 16 days to complete an orbit. “One explanation is that HIP13044 swallowed its inner planets during the red giant phase, which would make the star spin more quickly.” He added that there are unanswered questions about how the planet, which orbits a star containing very few chemical elements other than hydrogen and helium, was formed when there was apparently such a small range of material available. “It is a puzzle for the widely accepted model of planet formation to explain how such a star, which contains hardly any heavy elements at all, could have formed a planet,” said Setiawan.