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Study Concludes "Planet" Was Just Stellar Spots

Posted by timothy on from the waste-of-missiles dept.

Kligat writes "Back in January, it was reported that the youngest planet ever to be discovered, about ten times the mass of Jupiter, was orbiting the eight- to ten-million-year-old star TW Hydrae. Now a Spanish research team has concluded that TW Hydrae b doesn't exist, and that cold spots on the star's surface actually produced the dip in brightness instead of a transiting planet. Not as cool as if a planet had actually been there, but refutations are science, too, right?"

2 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It's Science! by evanbd · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So, have extrasolar sunspots been observed before?

    I assume sunspots are far better understood than planetary formation, and that they're less interesting, but still... TFA gives no hint as to whether this is a first.

    If this is a first, that's quite cool in its own right, even if there isn't a planet.

  2. Re:It's Science! by neil.orourke · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So, have extrasolar sunspots been observed before?

    I assume sunspots are far better understood than planetary formation

    Not necessarily so. The cause of sunspots is mostly understood, but this discovery is significant because it shows that starspots occur on stars with no known planets, thus providing the start of a refutation of the "Jupiter effect" in solar activity.