November 5, 2024

Brighton Journal

Complete News World

A giant exoplanet the size of Jupiter has a hidden companion disturbing its orbit.

A giant exoplanet the size of Jupiter has a hidden companion disturbing its orbit.

Scientists have discovered that a distant “hot Jupiter” planet has a planetary companion. The two planets are locked in a rhythmic dance around the star TOI-1408, which lies 455 light-years from Earth.

TOI-1408 b was first discovered last year by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) spacecraft, and is a gas giant planet that is twice as wide as Jupiter and roughly the mass of the other gas giant planets in the solar system. It orbits its parent star at a distance of 5.3 million miles, or about 6 percent of the distance between Earth and the sun. That means TOI-1408 b completes its orbit in just 4.4 Earth days.