Astroboffins spot a fat Alien planet terrorizing tiny dwarf

The giant, known as NGTS-1b, is 600 light years away and is the biggest planet compared to the size of its parent star NGTS-1 ever found.

NGTS-1b is a hot Jupiter, a rare class of exoplanet. Although small M-type dwarf stars like NGTS-1 are the most common type in the galaxy, only three hot Jupiters have been spotted around them so far.

NGTS-1 has a radius about half that of the Sun, whilst its closest companion NGTS-1b has a radius about 1.33 times that of Jupiter.

The two bodies are gravitationally locked close together; the mammoth planet completes an orbit in just over 2.6 days. Daniel Bayliss, lead author of the research and assistant professor at the astronomy and astrophysics department at the University of Warwick, in the UK, said today the result was a “complete surprise”.

“Such massive planets were not thought to exist around such small stars," said Bayliss.

"This is the first exoplanet we have found with our new [Next-Generation Transit Survey] NGTS facility and we are already challenging the received wisdom of how planets form. Our challenge is to now find out how common these types of planets are in the Galaxy,” Bayliss said.

UCJ, UNILORIN.