Astronomers discover a new “hot Jupiter” with a strange and tilted orbit

The newly discovered alien world, called TOI-1859 b, orbits its host star in a strange and curved orbit, according to a paper published in the journal arXiv.

As RT reports, the TESS spacecraft is studying about 200,000 of the brightest stars near the Sun.

To date, the spacecraft has identified nearly 6,600 TESS Objects of Interest, or TOI, exoplanet candidates, of which 333 have been confirmed.

In a recent study, a team of astronomers led by Jiayin Dong of Penn State University (PSU) has reported the confirmation of another exoplanet (TOI) candidate.

According to the paper, a transiting signal has been identified in the light curve of an F-class dwarf star called TOI-1859 (or TIC-229742722), which is rich in minerals and 30 percent more dense than our Sun. .

The planetary nature of this sign is confirmed by terrestrial observations.

Since the host star has an effective temperature of 6341 K, TOI-1859 b’s size and distance from the star indicate that it is a “hot Jupiter”.

Observations found that the axial tilt (the tilt of a planet’s axis of rotation) for TOI-1859 b is 38.9 degrees and the orbital eccentricity is about 0.57.

Astronomers speculate that such an eccentric and misaligned orbit for TOI-1859 b could be due to dynamical interactions such as planetary scattering and transmission of planet-disk vibrations.

Scientists recommend further study of the TOI-1859 system to verify the origin of the planet’s eccentric orbit. The team believes that long-term follow-up radial velocity measurements are needed to detect any other planetary/brown dwarf candidates and constrain their masses and orbits.

Also, the researchers note that more studies of hot Jupiters like TOI-1859 b are needed to investigate whether the star’s temperature affects orbital alignment.