The star is one of a binary pair, so the planet orbits the primary star, while the primary star orbits a secondary star. While Jupiter takes 4,000 Earth days to complete one orbit around the sun, hot Jupiters complete one orbit every few days. Astronomers use “eccentric” to refer to the shape of a planet’s orbit on a scale from zero to 1. “It’s a pretty extreme process in that the changes to the planet’s orbit are massive,” Millholland said. Discovering a second hot Jupiter precursor is helping astronomers to confirm the idea that high-mass gas giants transform into hot Jupiters as they migrate from eccentric to circular orbits, the researchers said.

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Persons: —, ”, Arvind Gupta, NOIRLab, Gupta, Suvrath Mahadevan, Verne, Willaman, Jason Wright, ” Wright, ” Gupta, Sarah Millholland, “, ” Millholland, Wright, James Webb Organizations: CNN —, Penn State, Astronomy, Mercury, NASA, Massachusetts Institute, Technology’s Kavli, for Astrophysics, Space Research, chrysalis Locations: Kitt, Arizona