most extreme range of orbits tagged posts

This is an artist’s impression of four gas giant in orbit around CI Tau.
Credit: Amanda Smith, Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge

Researchers have identified a young star with four Jupiter and Saturn-sized planets in orbit around it, the first time that so many massive planets have been detected in such a young system. The system has also set a new record for the most extreme range of orbits yet observed: the outermost planet is more than a thousand times further from the star than the innermost one, which raises interesting questions about how such a system might have formed.

The star is just two million years old – a ‘toddler’ in astronomical terms – and is surrounded by a huge disc of dust and ice...