Giant Exoplanet Helps Explain Solar System Formation

A giant exoplanet has been discovered orbiting a low-mass star. Find out why this finding challenges our understanding of planet formation and helps scientists decipher the origins of solar systems, including our own.

One thing that keeps stargazing interesting is the way the constellations move across the sky throughout the year. If I’m at my cottage over the Victoria Day long weekend, one of the most prominent attractions in the clear dark sky is a very bright star over the southern horizon called Spica.

Spica is in the constellation Virgo, and just below and to the right of that bright, blue star is a quadrilateral-shaped constellation called Corvus, the crow.

Corvus is in the news this week because a team of scientists have discovered an unusual star-and-planet combination in that part of the sky. It involves a low-mass star called TOI-4860.

Searching for Planets Around Other Stars

Astronomers weren’t even sure there were planets around other stars until 1995. That’s when Swiss astronomers Michael Mayor and Didier Queloz detected a planet orbiting a star in the constellation…