NASA scientists have discovered a strange planet orbiting around a binary system in the constellation Cygnus. The new planet has a very erratic wobble that causes wild fluctuations in the planet's seasons.
The planet, which NASA has dubbed as Kepler-413b, is 2,300 light years away from our solar system and it orbits around a binary system consisting of a red dwarf and an orange dwarf star. Kepler 413b was discovered using data from the Kepler Space Telescope.
"Looking at the Kepler data over the course of 1,500 days, we saw three transits in the first 180 days -- one transit every 66 days -- then we had 800 days with no transits at all. After that, we saw five more transits in a row," says principal investigator Veselin Kostov from the John Hopkins University and the Space Telescope Science Institute.
The planet is a gas giant similar to Neptune and it is around 65 times more massive than the Earth, orbiting around the binary stars every 66 days. However, the planet is located too close to the system's binary stars making it unsuitable for life. The planet's proximity to the binary stars means that the existence of liquid water is highly improbable.
Scientists are currently at a loss in coming up with an explnation as to why the planet's orbit wobbles the way it does. Current theories involve the presence other celestial bodies in the system, which may have an effect on the planet's orbit. Due to the way that the Kepler Space Telescope finds extrasolar planets, scientists may have to wait for more favorable conditions before the mystery is solved.
"Presumably there are planets out there like this one that we're not seeing because we're in the unfavorable period," said Space Telescope Science Institute team member Peter McCullough. "And that's one of the things that Veselin is researching: Is there a silent majority of things that we're not seeing?"
Planet hunters often use data gathered by the Kepler Space Telescope to find planets by looking for evidence of planetary transits, which happens when a planet partially obscures and dims the light of its parent star when it passes between the star and the vantage point of an observing telescope.
