Astronomers discover planet so hot, it burns brighter than some stars

“This planet obviously didn’t form this close to the star, there’s just not enough material to form such a large planet,” Dr Addison said.

“It must have formed out beyond what’s called the ‘ice line’, which in our solar system is around three to five AU [the distance from Earth to the sun, equal to about 150 million kilometres]. That’s where Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune formed.”

Adding to its unusual properties is the fact that the planet has a “retrograde” orbit, one in which it is tilted so dramatically compared to the rotation of the sun and other planets, it is actually orbiting in the opposite direction to the direction its sun is spinning.

Coupled with the fact that stars like the one TOI-1431b orbits tend to…