Chthonian planets (, sometimes 'cthonian') are a hypothetical class of celestial objects resulting from the stripping away of a

gas giant A gas giant is a giant planet composed mainly of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giants of the Solar System. The term "gas giant" was originally synonymous with "giant planet". However, in the 1990s, it became known that Uranu ...

hydrogen Hydrogen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol H and atomic number 1. It is the lightest and abundance of the chemical elements, most abundant chemical element in the universe, constituting about 75% of all baryon, normal matter ...

and

helium Helium (from ) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, non-toxic, inert gas, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. Its boiling point is ...

atmosphere An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosph ...

and outer layers, which is called

hydrodynamic escape In atmospheric science, hydrodynamic escape refers to a thermal atmospheric escape mechanism that can lead to the escape of heavier atoms of a planetary atmosphere through numerous collisions with lighter atoms, typically hydrogen. This mechani ...

. Such atmospheric stripping is a likely result of proximity to a

star A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...

. The remaining

rocky ''Rocky'' is a 1976 American independent film, independent sports drama film directed by John G. Avildsen and written by and starring Sylvester Stallone. It is the first installment in the Rocky (film series), ''Rocky'' franchise and also star ...

metal A metal () is a material that, when polished or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electrical resistivity and conductivity, electricity and thermal conductivity, heat relatively well. These properties are all associated wit ...

lic

core Core or cores may refer to: Science and technology * Core (anatomy), everything except the appendages * Core (laboratory), a highly specialized shared research resource * Core (manufacturing), used in casting and molding * Core (optical fiber ...

would resemble a

terrestrial planet A terrestrial planet, tellurian planet, telluric planet, or rocky planet, is a planet that is composed primarily of silicate, rocks or metals. Within the Solar System, the terrestrial planets accepted by the IAU are the inner planets closest to ...

in many respects.Hébrard G., Lecavelier Des Étangs A., Vidal-Madjar A., Désert J.-M., Ferlet R. (2003)
''Evaporation Rate of Hot Jupiters and Formation of chthonian Planets''
Extrasolar Planets: Today and Tomorrow, ASP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 321, held 30 June – 4 July 2003, Institut d'astrophysique de Paris, France. Edited by Jean-Philippe Beaulieu, Alain Lecavelier des Étangs and Caroline Terquem.

Etymology

''Chthon'' (from ) means "earth". The term ''chthonian'' was coined by Guillaume Hébrard et al. and generally refers to Greek

chthonic deities In Greek mythology, deities referred to as chthonic () or chthonian () were gods or spirits who inhabited the underworld or existed in or under the earth, and were typically associated with death or fertility. The terms "chthonic" and "chthonian" ...

from the infernal underground.

Possible examples

Transit-timing variation Transit-timing variation is a method for detecting exoplanets by observing variations in the timing of a transit. This provides an extremely sensitive method capable of detecting additional planets in the system with masses potentially as small a ...

measurements indicate, for example, that Kepler-52b, Kepler-52c and Kepler-57b have maximum masses between 30 and 100 times the

mass of Earth An Earth mass (denoted as ''M''🜨, ''M''♁ or ''M''E, where 🜨 and ♁ are the astronomical symbols for Earth), is a unit of mass equal to the mass of the planet Earth. The current best estimate for the mass of Earth is , with a relative ...

(although the actual masses could be much lower); with radii about two

Earth radii Earth radius (denoted as ''R''🜨 or ''R''E) is the distance from the center of Earth to a point on or near its surface. Approximating the figure of Earth by an Earth spheroid (an oblate ellipsoid), the radius ranges from a maximum (equato ...

, they might have densities larger than that of an iron planet of the same size. These exoplanets orbit very close to their stars and could be the remnant cores of evaporated

s or

brown dwarf Brown dwarfs are substellar objects that have more mass than the biggest gas giant planets, but less than the least massive main sequence, main-sequence stars. Their mass is approximately 13 to 80 Jupiter mass, times that of Jupiter ()not big en ...

s. If cores are massive enough they could remain compressed for billions of years despite losing the atmospheric mass. As there is a lack of gaseous "hot-super-Earths" between 2.2 and 3.8 Earth-radii exposed to over 650 Earth incident flux, it is assumed that exoplanets below such radii exposed to such stellar fluxes could have had their envelopes stripped by photoevaporation.

HD 209458 b

HD 209458 b HD 209458 b is an exoplanet, specifically a hot Jupiter, that orbits the solar analog HD 209458 in the constellation Pegasus, some from the Solar System. The radius of the planet's orbit is , or one-eighth the radius of Mercury's orbit (). Th ...

is an example of a gas giant that is in the process of having its atmosphere stripped away, though it will not become a chthonian planet for many billions of years, if ever. A similar case would be

Gliese 436 b Gliese 436 b (sometimes called GJ 436 b, formally named Awohali) is a Neptune-sized exoplanet orbiting the red dwarf Gliese 436. It was the first hot Neptune discovered with certainty (in 2007) and was among the smallest-known transiting plane ...

, which has already lost 10% of its atmosphere.

CoRoT-7b

CoRoT-7b is the first exoplanet found that might be chthonian. Other researchers dispute this, and conclude CoRoT-7b was always a rocky planet and not the eroded core of a gas or ice giant, due to the young age of the star system.

TOI-849 b

In 2020, a high-density planet more massive than Neptune was found very close to its host star, within the

Neptunian desert The Neptunian desert or sub-Jovian desert is broadly defined as the region close to a star where no Neptune-sized exoplanets are found. This zone receives strong irradiation from the star, meaning the planets cannot retain their gaseous atmosph ...

. This world,

TOI-849 b TOI-849 b is an exoplanet orbiting the late-G type star TOI-849. It is a candidate chthonian planet, the exposed core of a gas giant that had much of its atmosphere stripped away. It is around 700 light-years away from Earth. Characteristics ...

, may very well be a chthonian planet.

References