Principal Investigator: “The findings prove that the extreme conditions in which planets formed in perpendicular orbits are indeed possible in nature.”
Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope have discovered an unusual system in which the planet 2M1510 AB b orbits a pair of brown dwarfs, 2M1510 A and 2M1510 B, at a polar angle. The lowercase b in the noun indicates that it is a planet, not a manifestation of another planet or star, and it rotates in a plane that is close to 90 degrees to the plane of the brown dwarfs’ orbit.
The binary system of the two dwarfs was already detected in 2018 by the SPECULOOS program, but it was only through observations with the UVES instrument on the VLT telescope in Pernilla, Chile, that researchers, led by Thomas Bycroft of the University of Birmingham, were able to identify unusual perturbations in their orbits. Analysis of the data suggested that the only explanation for this behavior was the presence of a planet in a polar orbit around the binary pair.
“We didn’t expect to find such an orbit — it was a complete surprise,” said Bycroft. “The findings demonstrate that the extreme conditions under which planets formed in perpendicular orbits are indeed possible in nature.” His research colleague, Professor Emmanuel Triaud, added: “The discovery expands our understanding of planet formation in complex systems, and shows us that the possibilities of the universe far exceed theory.”
This is the first polar planet found orbiting a pair of brown dwarfs in a rare binary eclipsing — only the second eclipsing brown dwarf system known to date. 2M1510 AB b's orbit is so perpendicular that the planet passes above and beyond the plane of the dwarfs' motion, and precise observations of the eclipsing patterns and gravitational perturbations have allowed its orbital direction and angle to be determined with precision.
This study, published in Science Advances on April 16, 2025, opens the door to further investigations of unconventional planetary systems and demonstrates that planet formation mechanisms in diverse and extreme environments may be more common than we thought.
For the extended article on the ESO website
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We have already told scientists that the universe contains everything, every possibility they can imagine. And in addition, every possibility they cannot imagine. The human brain is not built to contain such an amount of information. And man is like a mosquito or a small virus, no more. A little modesty will not hurt. In the meantime, we live in a tiny bubble called Earth and cannot get our noses out. Like a virus, we have already said.