Uploaded December 2021 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN — Scientists are jumping for joy after finding a giant planet 325 light years away, but they’re unable to explain how it manages to exist in a place where no planet is supposed to exist. Here are the details:
A study published in Nature showed evidence of a giant planet where no planet was supposed to be able to exist.
Researchers studied images taken by the European Southern Observatory in Chile and found that the massive binary star system, b Centauri, is the host of a gas giant that is likely similar in composition to Jupiter but 11 times more massive, which makes it around 3,180 times heavier than Earth.
The massive planet is 325 light years from Earth, and orbits its binary star at a distance 14 times the distance from the Sun to Pluto.
The two-star system itself is between six and 10 times heavier than our Sun, which means it produces so much heat and radiation that it should be impossible for the newly found planet to have formed.
Stars like these are generally considered to be too destructive and dangerous to allow planet formation. Yet, scientists can clearly see that the planet does exist.
The study’s researchers theorize the massive distance at which the planet orbits the dangerous two-star system is the key to how it managed to survive.
One thing is for sure, though, the new planet’s unlikely existence is upending lots of things astrophysicists thought they knew about the universe.
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN — Scientists are jumping for joy after finding a giant planet 325 light years away, but they’re unable to explain how it manages to exist in a place where no planet is supposed to exist. Here are the details:
A study published in Nature showed evidence of a giant planet where no planet was supposed to be able to exist.
Researchers studied images taken by the European Southern Observatory in Chile and found that the massive binary star system, b Centauri, is the host of a gas giant that is likely similar in composition to Jupiter but 11 times more massive, which makes it around 3,180 times heavier than Earth.
The massive planet is 325 light years from Earth, and orbits its binary star at a distance 14 times the distance from the Sun to Pluto.
The two-star system itself is between six and 10 times heavier than our Sun, which means it produces so much heat and radiation that it should be impossible for the newly found planet to have formed.
Stars like these are generally considered to be too destructive and dangerous to allow planet formation. Yet, scientists can clearly see that the planet does exist.
The study’s researchers theorize the massive distance at which the planet orbits the dangerous two-star system is the key to how it managed to survive.
One thing is for sure, though, the new planet’s unlikely existence is upending lots of things astrophysicists thought they knew about the universe.
