Superplanet 3,752 times heavier than Earth discovered

Analyzing data from the European Space Agency's (ESA) Gaia spacecraft, scientists have discovered a planet named Gaia-4b and a brown dwarf named Gaia-5b orbiting two dwarf stars.

They are all incredibly strange and great worlds.

Graphic depicting planet Gaia-4b and brown dwarf Gaia-5b orbiting two orange and red dwarf stars - Photo: ESA

According to a paper published in the Astronomical Journal, Gaia-4b is a "super-Jupiter" planet, a gas planet similar to Jupiter but much larger. Measurements show that its mass is 11.8 times that of Jupiter, or 3,752 times that of Earth.

It orbits a red dwarf or orange dwarf star, called Gaia-4, and is located about 244 light-years from Earth.

Sci-News quoted Dr. Guðmundur Stefánsson from the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands), a member of the research team, that this planet has an orbital period of 571 days, meaning it orbits quite far from its parent star and is relatively cold.

Gaia-4b is also one of the first exoplanets discovered using astrophotometric techniques and is one of the largest known planets orbiting a low-mass star.

Another interesting discovery is the brown dwarf Gaia-5b, which orbits the red dwarf star Gaia-5, about 134 light-years from our planet.

Brown dwarfs are some of the weirdest objects in the universe. They typically have a mass greater than 13 times that of Jupiter, are too large to be planets, and are not typically born from the protoplanetary disk of any star.

However, Gaia-5b — like other brown dwarfs — is still too small to sustain nuclear fusion in its core, which would qualify it as a star.

It is therefore considered a "failed star" or "high-class planet" and is probably a companion to Gaia-5, rather than a "child" of this red dwarf star.

In this case, scientists calculated the mass of this half-star, half-planet object to be about 21 times that of Jupiter, or 6,678 times that of Earth.

Samuel Daniel

Update 10 February 2025