The European Space Agency's Gaia spacecraft has made a groundbreaking discovery, finding two giant cosmic objects orbiting low-mass stars. This is the first time an exoplanet, named Gaia-4b, has been detected solely by its gravitational wobble on its star. Additionally, a brown dwarf, Gaia-5b, was confirmed, challenging existing theories of planet formation. The findings highlight Gaia's remarkable capabilities and its contribution to our understanding of the universe.
Astronomers are buzzing over a groundbreaking discovery made by the European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft, which found two giant cosmic objects hiding in plain sight.
The exoplanet, named Gaia-4b, orbits a star 244 light-years away, whereas the Gaia-5b, the brown dwarf – an astronomical object that is intermediate between a planet and a star – orbits a star around 134 light-years from Earth. The Gaia telescope aimed to create an accurate and detailed 3D map of billions of stars in our galaxy. Its findings have flipped astronomers' understanding of the Milky Way on its head and have led to a decade of discoveries beyond our galaxy.
EXOPLANETS BROWN DWARF PLANET FORMATION GAIA SPACECRAFT MILKY WAY
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