Data from the ESA's Gaia spacecraft has propelled lots of new discoveries, and now it's helped find a giant exoplanet.
on Mauna Kea, which provided direct observations and confirmation of the distant exoplanet.
Scientists would like to find and study more of these planets because they’re rare. There’s nothing like them in our Solar System. But they need to know where to look, and that’s where this new method comes in. The Gaia and Hipparcos data revealed the tell-tale wobble of a star as a massive planet tugged on it gravitationally. This brings us to an important distinction between indirect and direct observations of exoplanets.
Even though the planet type in question orbits its star at a great distance, its mass is large enough to tug on the star, creating a wobble. Measuring the wobble a planet induces in its star is part ofAstrometry detects a star’s motion through the sky by taking precise measurements of its position over time. It can also measure the tiny, almost imperceptible wobble caused by orbiting exoplanets, even when we can’t directly detect the planet.
The new planet is called HIP 99770 b, with HIP referring to the catalogue of data from Hipparchos. HIP 99770 b is about 14 – 16 times more massive than Jupiter and orbits a star about twice as massive as the Sun. Its orbit is three times larger than Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun. Combining direct measurements and indirect measurements is a holistic approach to exoplanet science that will only grow in the future. The combination is effective and makes sense. Each type of measurement contributes something different to our understanding of an exoplanet.
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