A Planet in a Perpendicular Orbit around Two Brown Dwarf Stars | ESO
Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have found an exoplanet orbiting a pair of peculiar stars at an angle of 90 degrees. There have previously been hints that these so-called polar planets around two stars could exist, but we now have clear evidence that this is the case. This special system was found by observing the orbital path of the two stars being pushed and pulled in a way that could only be explained by the presence of a planet on a polar orbit. This video summarizes the discovery, explaining the nature of these peculiar stars and the method astronomers used to find this odd planet.
The team found this planet while refining the orbital and physical parameters of the two brown dwarfs by collecting observations with the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES) instrument on ESO's VLT at Paranal Observatory, Chile. The pair of brown dwarfs, known as 2M1510, were first detected in 2018 by Triaud and others with the Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars (SPECULOOS), another Paranal facility.
Brown dwarfs are objects that straddle the dividing line between stars and planets. They form like stars, growing dense enough to collapse under their own gravity, but they never become dense and hot enough to begin fusing hydrogen and turn into a star. At the low end of the scale, some brown dwarfs are comparable with giant planets, weighing just a few times the mass of Jupiter.
Directed by: Angelos Tsaousis and Martin Wallner
Written by: Amy Briggs and Sean Bromilow
Footage and photos: ESO / Luis Calçada, Cristoph Malin, Martin Kornmesser, Daniele Gasparri, VPHAS+ team
Scientific consultant: Paola Amico, Mariya Lyubenova
Duration: 1 minute, 30 seconds
Release Date: April 16, 2025
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