Alien ‘Super-Jupiter’ Breaks the Mold on Where Planets Can Exist

An undated artist's impression shows a close-up of the planet b Centauri (AB)b, which orbits a binary system with mass up to 10 times that of the Sun roughly 325 light years from Earth. The planet orbits the two-star system at 100 times the distance Jupiter orbits the sun. European Southern Observatory/L. Calcada/Handout via REUTERS
An undated artist's impression shows a close-up of the planet b Centauri (AB)b, which orbits a binary system with mass up to 10 times that of the Sun roughly 325 light years from Earth. The planet orbits the two-star system at 100 times the distance Jupiter orbits the sun. European Southern Observatory/L. Calcada/Handout via REUTERS
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Alien ‘Super-Jupiter’ Breaks the Mold on Where Planets Can Exist

An undated artist's impression shows a close-up of the planet b Centauri (AB)b, which orbits a binary system with mass up to 10 times that of the Sun roughly 325 light years from Earth. The planet orbits the two-star system at 100 times the distance Jupiter orbits the sun. European Southern Observatory/L. Calcada/Handout via REUTERS
An undated artist's impression shows a close-up of the planet b Centauri (AB)b, which orbits a binary system with mass up to 10 times that of the Sun roughly 325 light years from Earth. The planet orbits the two-star system at 100 times the distance Jupiter orbits the sun. European Southern Observatory/L. Calcada/Handout via REUTERS

One of the largest planets ever detected orbits at an enormous distance around two stars with a combined mass up to 10 times greater than our sun, an extreme celestial family that shatters assumptions about the type of places where planets can exist.

The planet, located about 325 light years from Earth, is a gas giant apparently similar in composition to Jupiter but about 11 times more massive, researchers said on Wednesday. It belongs to a planetary class called "super-Jupiters" exceeding the mass of our solar system's largest planet.

It orbits a pair of stars gravitationally bound to one another, called a binary system. It has what might be the widest orbit of any known planet - about 100 times wider than Jupiter's orbit around our sun and about 560 times wider than Earth's.

Until now, no planet had been found orbiting a star more than three times the sun's mass. Stars larger than that emit so much radiation that they were thought to torch the planetary formation process. This discovery dashes that view.

"Planet formation appears to be an incredibly diverse process. It has surpassed our imagination many times in the past, and will probably keep doing so in the future," said astronomer Markus Janson of Stockholm University in Sweden, lead author of the research published in the journal Nature, Reuters reported.

Since the discovery in the 1990s of the first planets beyond our solar system - so-called exoplanets - scientists have sought to learn whether or not our solar system represents standard "architecture."

"From the trend seen so far, our solar system is not the most common type of planetary system architecture that exists," said study co-author Gayathri Viswanath, a Stockholm University astronomy doctoral student.

"For instance, there are planetary systems with so-called 'hot Jupiters' where massive Jupiter-size planets orbit their host stars at a very close distance. A vast majority of the discovered planets also seem to have a size between that of Earth and Neptune, a size range in which our solar system has no planets," Viswanath said.

The larger of the tandem stars in the b Centauri system in which the newly discovered planet resides has a mass around five to six times that of the sun and is more than three times hotter, unleashing large amounts of ultraviolet and X-ray radiation.

It is a so-called B-type star, a category of extremely luminous blue stars. It is quite young in cosmic terms, at around 15 million years old. In comparison, the sun is roughly 4.5 billion years old.

Less is known about the smaller of the tandem. It is estimated at anywhere from one-tenth to four times the sun's mass. The two stars orbit relatively close to one another, within about the distance of the Earth from the sun. They can be seen with the naked eye from Earth in the constellation Centaurus.

The European Southern Observatory's Chile-based Very Large Telescope captured an image of the planet, named b Centauri (AB)b. Like Jupiter, it is believed to be comprised mostly of hydrogen and helium.

Scientists had doubted that stars larger than three times the sun's mass could host planets because they would present an unfriendly environment for planetary formation.

Planets form from material coming together inside huge disks of swirling gas and dust surrounding newborn stars. Big stars, it was thought, give off so much high-energy radiation that this material might be evaporated. The newly identified planet coalesced so far from its stars that it may have avoided this cauldron.

"The distance from the stars probably matters a lot, at least it did when the planet formed," Janson said.



Fires Engulf Türkiye’s Mediterranean Coast as Government Declares 2 Disaster Zones

People stand next to smoke rising from the wildfire in the Aksu district of Antalya, a Mediterranean city in southern Türkiye, July 25, 2025. (Reuters)
People stand next to smoke rising from the wildfire in the Aksu district of Antalya, a Mediterranean city in southern Türkiye, July 25, 2025. (Reuters)
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Fires Engulf Türkiye’s Mediterranean Coast as Government Declares 2 Disaster Zones

People stand next to smoke rising from the wildfire in the Aksu district of Antalya, a Mediterranean city in southern Türkiye, July 25, 2025. (Reuters)
People stand next to smoke rising from the wildfire in the Aksu district of Antalya, a Mediterranean city in southern Türkiye, July 25, 2025. (Reuters)

New wildfires broke out on Türkiye’s Mediterranean coast Friday, as the government declared two western provinces in the country to be disaster zones.

Images showed flames and smoke billowing into the sky close to high-rise apartment buildings in Antalya, where local and foreign visitors flock during the summer months.

Homes were evacuated in the city center and the outlying district of Aksu as the fire advanced, privately owned news agency DHA reported. Firefighters struggled to extinguish the blazes before strong winds could spread the fire, which closed a major coastal road.

Further along the coast, homes in the city of Manavgat were also threatened.

Local residents with hoses and buckets rushed to assist firefighters as water-dropping helicopters and planes also battled the flames. Police water cannons and municipal water trucks were also enlisted in the firefighting efforts.

Antalya Gov. Hulusi Sahin said that the fires were under control apart from one in Aksu, which was "showing a tendency to grow," and another in Gazipasa, east of Manavgat.

"The fires were truly disturbing and dangerous, because they occurred in city centers, among houses," he said. "We evacuated some of our homes ... There are no deaths or injuries."

At 46.1C (115F), July temperatures in Antalya city were the highest for the month since records began in 1930.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, meanwhile, said Friday that Izmir and Bilecik provinces had been declared "disaster areas affecting public life," one step below the most serious level of emergency.

Between June 27 and Thursday, residents from 120 neighborhoods nationwide were evacuated, Yerlikaya added, and more than 12,000 workers under the ministry’s authority, such as police and rescue staff, had fought the fires.

In a social media post, the minister said 311 homes had been destroyed or seriously damaged during the monthlong blazes and 85 temporary housing units were set up across three western provinces for those made homeless.

Speaking after Friday prayers, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Türkiye was "faced with a truly great disaster." He said that 25,000 personnel were fighting fires across the country, assisted by 27 planes, 105 helicopters and 6,000 ground vehicles.

Türkiye has faced widespread outbreaks of forest fires since late June. Thirteen people have died, including 10 rescue volunteers and forestry workers killed Wednesday in a fire in Eskisehir, western Türkiye. The funerals for the 10 were on Thursday.

Temperatures above seasonal norms have been exacerbated by strong winds and dry conditions, resulting in dozens of wildfires.

East of Antalya, fires broke out in Adana and Mersin on Friday. Elsewhere in the country, firefighters continued battling blazes in Eskisehir and nearby Karabuk that have been raging for several days.

Albania battles fires

The heat wave in the eastern Mediterranean region saw 1,000 firefighters and soldiers battle flames in Albania as temperatures reached 42 C (107 F).

In the Albanian city of Elbasan, firefighters have been combating a weeklong blaze in the country’s central mountain forests. Fires have also broke out near the southern border with Greece.

Cyprus aftermath

In the aftermath of one of Cyprus’ worst wildfires in living memory, it wasn’t lost on Cypriot officials that climate change may have been a significant contributing factor to the pace and ferocity of the flames.

Both government spokesman Constantinos Letymbiotis and Fire Chief Nicos Longinos referred to the arid conditions, with temperatures hitting 44 C (111 F) and very strong winds that quickly overwhelmed fire crews.

Even 14 firefighting aircraft couldn’t douse the multiple, fast-moving fire fronts quickly enough.

Cyprus is in its third year of minimal winter rains on which it relies for drinking water and for agricultural purposes, even as the government is revving up additional desalination projects.

The fire that moved at breakneck speed left two dead, forced the evacuation of 16 communities, scorched dozens of homes and destroyed many orchards and farms.

Quizzed by a reporter about criticisms that the Fire Service didn’t move quickly enough, Longinos was on the verge of tears when he said that he and all his firefighters have taken an oath to "give their lives" if need be to save lives and property.