Astronomers Discover Massive Planet 10 Times Bigger Than Jupiter

b Centauri and its giant planet b Centauri b, taken by the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope and using a coronagraph. It blocked the immensely bright light from the massive star system (top left) and allowed astronomers to detect the faint planet (arrow). ESO/Janson et al

A group of astronomers has discovered one of the biggest planets ever found orbiting a massive and extremely hot two-star system, despite previously believing that such an environment was too inhospitable for a planet to form in.

The planet was discovered by Markus Janson, a professor of astronomy at Stockholm University, and colleagues, according to research published Wednesday in the science journal Nature.