Massive planet too big for its own sun pushes astronomers to rethink exoplanet formation

Congrats to former CEHW graduate student, Dr. Gudmundur Stefansson, and the rest of the team on their recent paper in Science that reports the discovery of a Neptune-mass exoplanet in close orbit around a very low-mass star using the Habitable Zone Planet Finder and Hobby-Eberly Telescope.

Artistic rendering of the possible view from LHS 3154b towards its low mass host star. Given its large mass, LHS 3154b probably has a Neptune-like composition. Credit: Penn State / Penn State. Creative Commons

To learn more, see:

• The Conversation article
• Penn State Release
• Dutch press release
• Princeton Astronomy News Annoucement
• HPF Blog Post