Discovery Alert: Mini-Neptune in Double Star System is a Planetary Puzzle
A planet that could resemble a smaller version of our own Neptune orbits one of two Sun-like stars that also orbit each other.
The planet dwells in the “habitable zone,” with a potentially moderate temperature, and poses a challenge to prevailing ideas of planet formation.
Astronomers once imagined that our solar system – with its middle-aged, quiet Sun hosting small,
Among the thousands of exoplanets – planets beyond our solar system – confirmed in our galaxy so far,
the detection of planet TOI 4633 c was a welcome departure. That isn’t only because its 272-day orbit places it in fairly exclusive company
The list of puzzling properties for this system continues. Measurements using a second detection method revealed a possible sibling planet with a 34-day orbit.
An international team led by astrophysicist Nora L. Eisner of the Flatiron Institute in New York published the study
archival data that was part of the Washington Double Star Catalog, maintained by the U.S. Naval Observatory, and was gathered between 1905 and 2011.