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The discovery of exoplanets has started lately as researchers often use better tools and techniques to find these mass spheres in much of space. Researchers have confirmed more than 4,300 exoplanets. They all had one thing in common: their orbit was relatively close to their host star. In stark contrast to this pattern, scientists have discovered something extraordinary. A giant exoplanet that is in a 15,000-year orbit around its binary star system. This is the first time that researchers have been able to confirm such a gigantic orbit.
The exoplanet is called HD 106906 b and is about eleven times heavier than Jupiter. The host stars on this planet are only 15 million years old and orbit each other every 100 days. The entire system is approximately 336 light-years away, and the pair of hot, main sequence stars are named HD 106906. This discovery has caught some ears in the scientific community as it resembles the fabled, extremely wide orbit of Planet Nine. The planet has an eccentric and severely misaligned orbit that researchers hope to find with planet nine.
Most of the exoplanets found so far are so close to their host stars because of the techniques we use to identify them. The two best known techniques, namely the transit method and the wobble method, measure changes in the properties of the star that can be ascribed to an orbiting planet. To be sure, researchers must periodically make several changes to confirm an exoplanet. Because of this, something with a large orbit is extremely difficult to confirm. They have to wait a long time for a planet with a large orbit to force observable changes periodically.
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The new exoplanet is an exception because, unlike all the others discovered, it was directly imaged. In order for the researchers to find the orbit of HD 106906 b, they had to look back 14 years in the archive of the Hubble space telescope. They found it was 737 astronomical units away from its star. The most confusing part of this discovery is that the exoplanet is not orbiting the binary star system in the same plane as the other planets.
Many theories have been proposed as a possible explanation for this bizarre configuration. This discovery will give more power to the international attempt to find the hypothetical planet Nine, as it has shown that such a bizarre orbit is possible. Without a doubt, this new exoplanet will be the source of much new information for researchers around the world.
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