Planet Found Orbiting Two Stars At A Perfect 90-Degree Angle

Astronomers have discovered an exoplanet orbiting not just a pair of brown dwarfs, but doing so at a perfect 90-degree angle. This rare “polar orbit” defies conventional models of planet formation, confirming that even the most extreme celestial setups can give rise to planetary systems.

Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, scientists stumbled upon a bizarre new world now named 2M1510 (AB) b. The planet was detected while researchers were tracking an unusual pair of brown dwarfs, 2M1510 A and B, known for their eclipsing behavior as seen from Earth.

This makes the newly confirmed planet not just a standout for its perpendicular orbit—but the first ever to be found in such a configuration around a binary brown dwarf system. The odds of this arrangement were so slim that the team wasn’t even looking for it. “The discovery was serendipitous,” says co-lead researcher Amaury Triaud of the University of Birmingham. “It completely caught us off guard.”

Planets orbiting two stars—known as circumbinary planets—are already uncommon, but they typically align with the orbital plane of their host stars. A polar orbit, where the planet loops around the binary system at a 90-degree angle, had never been directly observed before, though theories and indirect evidence suggested it could happen.

“Seeing real, credible evidence that this configuration exists is thrilling,” said lead author Thomas Baycroft, a PhD student at the University of Birmingham. The discovery confirms long-standing theories that planet-forming disks can tilt in extreme ways, giving birth to planets on exotic orbital paths.

Astronomers were monitoring perturbations in the motion of 2M1510 AB using the UVES spectrograph on the VLT, initially to refine the brown dwarfs’ characteristics. They noticed something odd: the stars were wobbling in a way that suggested the gravitational influence of a third object. After eliminating all other possibilities, the only explanation that fit the data was the presence of a planet on a perpendicular orbit.

The brown dwarfs themselves are faint, low-mass objects that don’t shine like regular stars, and are only slightly more massive than gas giants like Jupiter. What makes 2M1510 AB even more special is that it’s only the second known eclipsing brown dwarf binary, further amplifying the uniqueness of this planetary system.

The existence of 2M1510 (AB) b not only reshapes assumptions about planetary system formation but also suggests that the universe may be hiding far more diverse planetary architectures than we’ve imagined. It challenges the idea that stable orbits require flat, aligned planetary disks, showing instead that even chaotic setups can lead to the birth of planets.

“Overall, this discovery tells us—and the public—just how wild and diverse the universe truly is,” said Triaud.