Building up systems with Dynamite
Our model, nicknamed Dynamite, combines four ingredients to predict hidden worlds. First, Dynamite considers the
locations and sizes of all currently known planets in a given system. In general, the more planets that are known in the system, the easier it is to predict whether any are missing. The second consideration is knowing that planets are more likely to be closer to the star than farther out. Dynamite uses a mathematical description – built up through statistical studies of thousands of known exoplanets – of how far from their host star planets are likely to be.
Although planets are likely to be closer to their host stars, they cannot all be jammed together. Planets all attract each other via gravity, which is much stronger when the planets are closer. Thus, planets that are too close will distort each others orbits, often leading to chaotic interactions and even the ejection of one of the planets from their birth systems. This criterion for stability is the third important element that Dynamite uses to predict the architecture of the planetary system.
The fourth component is a mathematical pattern in the lengths of the orbits of adjacent planets (some configurations are more likely than others). Put together, Dynamite tries to build model planetary systems that are similar to actual planetary systems, with a compact and stable collection of planets orbiting their host stars.
We were not sure whether such a relatively simple recipe could be used to successfully predict missing planets. To test Dynamite, we gave it some known multi-planet systems with a twist: In each system we hid one or two of the known planets from the algorithm. In the cases tested, Dynamite successfully predicted whether one or two planets are missing and where those planets could be, and could even guess their sizes correctly.
Today, Dynamite can be tested only on systems with planetary orbits similar to that of Earth’s or smaller. That’s because we lack data on outer planetary systems, so we cannot yet detect far-flung planets – the equivalent of Neptune. More data will allow Dynamite’s four rules of building a planetary system to be refined and its predictions improved. Still, our predictions for over 50 partially explored planetary systems, discovered by NASA’s TESS space telescope, are already guiding the search for hidden worlds.