Scientists discover ‘super Jupiter’ orbiting white dwarf

Washington : Space scientists have discovered a ‘super Jupiter’ orbiting a white dwarf, detected using direct observations of the European Space Agency (ESA)’s Gaia mission.
The discovery forms part of a treasure trove of data made available in Gaia’s Data Release 3, which provides the most detailed survey of our galactic neighbourhood to date.
Observations made by the Gaia observatory, which orbits a point in space about 1.5 million km from Earth, will allow astronomers to create the most accurate and complete multi-dimensional map of the Milky Way and better understand our place in the Universe.
Martin Barstow, Professor of Astrophysics and Space Science at the University of Leicester and Director of Strategic Partnerships for Space Park Leicester, is part of the Gaia collaboration to have co-authored multiple papers using the new data.
Other highlights of Data Release 3 include a description of ‘starquakes’, stellar DNA and a new binary star catalogue of more than 800,000 binary systems. Before Gaia launched in 2013, only around 30,000 binaries were known in our galaxy.
Professor Barstow said: