Researchers Discovered a Giant Planet As Large As 8 Jupiter Near A Young Star

A team of astronomers have discovered a giant exoplanet near a young star, expected size of which is about 8 planets like Jupiter put together. This is one of the rarest exoplanet found till date, and what makes it rare is that it was observed near a young star which is around 450 light years away from the Earth. The name of the star is CI Tau and that of the exoplanet is CI Tau b.


CI Tau star is near about 2 million years old and still retains a cloudy disk of dust and interstellar materials. It was previously believed that planets as large as the discovered exoplanet are formed near an older star having at least 10-12 million years of age. However, existence of a giant planet near a young star completely redefines the study of planet formation.

The star and the exoplanet system are given the name - CI Tau and CI Tau b - as they lie in the Taurus Constellation. Using the Radial Velocity (RV) survey, it was found out that the exoplanet revolves around the star once in every 225 hrs. Under this technique, they use the radial velocity to take into account the effect of the gravitational pull of the star into the planet’s propagation. These types of methods are often used when the necessary data aren’t available with the help of the existing telescopes. Christopher J. Crockett, Johns Krull and his team- the brains behind this discovery of the exoplanet has recently published their work in the Astrophysical Journal and are getting a good response from the scientific community.

A star as young as CI Tau retains gas clouds and dusts, and often releases bursts of radiations which causes problems for spectroscopic telescopes to detect the position of the exoplanets located around it. However, astronomers keep on adopting newer techniques like RV and NIR (near-infrared) among others to gather relevant data.

Krull and his team are now trying to detect more exoplanets around CI Tau. There are indications that more exoplanets can be found near it. It would then be helpful to understand the science of planet formation as observing other planets would provide valuable results. Around 32680 exoplanets have been detected in the past 2 decades and they believe that CI Tau b is one of the suitable candidates which will help them to understand the whole mystery behind the science of planet formation.

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