Gas giant 11 times the mass of Jupiter discovered in b Centauri binary system

[Judi Lynn]

Orbit roughly 100 times wider than that of similar planets in our solar system

Lindsay Clark Thu 9 Dec 2021 // 19:01 UTC

Scientists have discovered a gas giant planet 11 times the mass Jupiter orbiting the binary system of b Centauri A and B.

The b Centauri star system, located roughly 325 light years from our solar system, hosts stars with a combined mass between six and 10 times that of the Sun.

A team led by Markus Janson, an astronomy professor at Stockholm University, has confirmed the existence of the distant gas giant, about 11 times the mass of Jupiter, using data from the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Paranal, Chile.

The results – written up in Nature this week – show that planets can reside in much larger stellar systems than previous research has suggested, improving our understanding of the planet formation process. Previous research had suggested it would be rare to find gas giants orbiting stars with more than 3 solar masses.

More:
https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/09/new_gas_giant/

[Igel]

1. So a failed brown dwarf.

You break up a molecular cloud, you get all kinds of stuff.