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Corey S Powell (coreyspowell@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 17-Apr-2025 10:09:43 JST Corey S Powell

Possibly the weirdest planet yet discovered?
Newfound world 2M1510 (AB) b appears to orbit not one but two stars...and they are actually failed stars, known as brown dwarfs...and the planet orbits sideways, in a unique up-and-down polar orbit.
https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2508/ #space #science #astronomy #nature
In conversation about a month ago from mastodon.social permalink
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1. Left: This image, taken in visible light, shows 2M1510 AB, a pair of brown dwarfs orbiting each other. The two brown dwarfs, A and B, are seen as a single source in this image, but we know there are two of them because they periodically eclipse each other. When monitoring their orbits, astronomers found perturbations that can only be explained by the gravitational tug of an exoplanet circling both brown dwarfs in a perpendicular orbit. This system contains a third brown dwarf, 2M1510 C, which is located too far away to be responsible for these perturbations. Right: This is an artist’s impression of the exoplanet 2M1510 (AB) b’s unusual orbit around its host stars, a pair of brown dwarfs. The newly discovered planet has a polar orbit, which is perpendicular to the plane in which the two stars are traveling.
  https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/349/888/481/574/052/original/78f9de4b220ea60d.jpg

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