Using the new CHEOPS space telescope to study a known planet orbiting the star Nu2 Lupi, a weird dip in brightness was observed that could only be one thing – an additional planet. Okay, it could have been a whole lot of things, but by using archival data of this star system, researchers were able to determine that a third planet in the system had photobombed their images of the second planet. 

This third planet has a roughly 107-day orbit and is at a distance from its star where we are only beginning to find planets. This system is less than 50 light-years away, and with systems like Hubble, or one day JWST, we may be able to measure all these world’s atmospheres. According to CHEOPS project scientist Kate Isaak: While none of these planets would be habitable, their diversity makes the system even more exciting, and a great future prospect for testing how these bodies form and change over time. There is also the potential to search for rings or moons in the Nu2 Lupi system, as the exquisite precision and stability of Cheops could allow detection of bodies down to roughly the size of Mars.

This work appears in Nature Astronomy and was led by Laetitia Delrez.

More Information

University of Liège press release

“Transit detection of the long-period volatile-rich super-Earth ν2 Lupi d with CHEOPS,” Laetitia Delrez et al., 2021 June 28, Nature Astronomy