Astronomers stunned by discovery: Giant exoplanet orbiting a tiny red dwarf defies current planetary formation theories

Astronomers have discovered a massive exoplanet, LHS 3154 b, orbiting a small red dwarf star, LHS 3154, located about 50 light-years from Earth. This finding challenges existing theories of planetary formation, which suggest that low-mass stars like red dwarfs should not be able to host such large planets. - LHS 3154 is a red dwarf with only 11% the mass of our Sun, making it relatively small and cool. - The planet LHS 3154 b is at least 13 times the mass of Earth and orbits extremely close to its star—just 2.3% of the Earth-Sun distance. - It completes one orbit every 3.7 days, indicating a very tight and fast orbit. - According to current models, stars like LHS 3154 should only form small, Earth-sized planets due to limited material in their surrounding disks. This discovery contradicts that assumption.

The planet’s existence suggests that our understanding of how planets form around low-mass stars may be incomplete. Researchers from Penn State University and Princeton University, including astronomers Suvrath Mahadevan and Guðmundur Stefánsson, are studying this anomaly. Their findings will be published in the prestigious journal Science, and they credit the discovery to advanced instruments like the Habitable-zone Planet Finder (HPF). This discovery opens new questions about the diversity of planetary systems and the mechanisms behind their formation