Astronomers have spotted a planet about 10 times the size of Jupiter orbiting a B-type star that is more than three times as hot as the sun.
The details of the discovered planet, named b Centauri b, were published in Nature this week. It is one of the most massive planets ever spotted and, based on what researchers know about planet formation, it technically shouldn’t exist.
The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile spotted the large mass in the constellation Centaurus, orbiting “b Centauri” — a pair of stars at least six times the mass of the sun, and gravitationally bound to one another.