Jupiter analogues, also known as Jupiter-like planets, are

exoplanet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992 around a pulsar, and the first detection around a main-sequence star was in 1995. A different planet, first det ...

s that are similar to the planet

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

, the fifth and largest planet in the

solar system The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...

. They are often defined as

planet A planet is a large, Hydrostatic equilibrium, rounded Astronomical object, astronomical body that is generally required to be in orbit around a star, stellar remnant, or brown dwarf, and is not one itself. The Solar System has eight planets b ...

s that has at least 1

Jupiter mass The Jupiter mass, also called Jovian mass, is the unit of mass equal to the total mass of the planet Jupiter. This value may refer to the mass of the planet alone, or the mass of the entire Jovian system to include the moons of Jupiter. Jupiter ...

or larger and orbits its host

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 ...

at a distance 3 to 12

astronomical unit The astronomical unit (symbol: au or AU) is a unit of length defined to be exactly equal to . Historically, the astronomical unit was conceived as the average Earth-Sun distance (the average of Earth's aphelion and perihelion), before its m ...

s (AU), roughly one to a few times that of the systems

snow line The climatic snow line is the boundary between a snow-covered and snow-free surface. The actual snow line may adjust seasonally, and be either significantly higher in elevation, or lower. The permanent snow line is the level above which snow wil ...

. The lower limit of mass for Jupiter-like planets is not well defined as it can be as low of 0.8-0.3 Jupiter masses to include planets like

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 tim ...

Formation and evolution

Formation of a Gas Giant with an Initial Primary Atmosphere

While the exact formation of Jupiter-like exoplanets are not known, models of gas giant

planet formation The nebular hypothesis is the most widely accepted model in the field of cosmogony to explain the formation and evolution of the Solar System (as well as other planetary systems). It suggests the Solar System is formed from gas and dust orbiting t ...

predict that Jupiter-like planets should easily form around

s similar to our

Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

through core-accretion mechanisms. This therefore should make planets similar to Jupiter a common occurrence in the

universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents. It comprises all of existence, any fundamental interaction, physical process and physical constant, and therefore all forms of matter and energy, and the structures they form, from s ...

with roughly 6-20% of Sun-like stars having Jupiter-like planets. But this number varies from low rates like 6.9% to higher rates like 25%. It has been found that Jupiter analogues are very rare in mid to late type M-dwarf stars with 0.1-0.3 solar masses. There has been some detections of Jupiter-like planets around red dwarf stars such as TOI-4860b with 0.67 Jupiter masses. The time it takes for form Jupiter-like planets is typically 3-5 million years but some estimates place the formation of Jupiter-like exoplanets to around 1-2 million years.

Effect on their systems

Jupiter has played a major role in the evolution of our Solar system, determining much of its structure and the configuration of solar system bodies. It is likely that Jupiter-like exoplanets play a similar role in their systems.

Examples

With their common occurrence and their increased chance of detection, there are many exoplanets discovered that have been classed as Jupiter analogues. Kepler-167e is a exoplanet orbiting the K-type main sequence star

Kepler-167 Kepler-167 is a K-type main-sequence star located about away from the Solar System in the constellation of Cygnus. The star has about 78% the mass and 75% the radius of the Sun, and a temperature of . It hosts a system of four known exop ...

. It’s mass and radius is very similar to Jupiter with about 1 Jupiter masses and 0.9 Jupiter radii. Around the young

F-type main sequence An F-type main-sequence star (F V) is a main-sequence, hydrogen-fusing star of spectral type F and luminosity class V. These stars have from 1.0 to 1.4 times the mass of the Sun and surface temperatures between 6,000 and 7,600 K.Tables VII ...

star

51 Eridani 51 Eridani is a star in the constellation Eridanus. It has an apparent magnitude of 5.22, meaning it is just visible to the unaided eye in suburban and rural skies. The primary star's absolute magnitude is 2.87. There is also a binary s ...

, there is a Jupiter-like planet named 51 Eridani b. This exoplanet has been directly imaged.

References

{{Extrasolar-planet-stub Types of planet