Subaru Telescope Unveils Hidden Giant Planet And Brown Dwarf In Groundbreaking Discovery

Astronomers working with the Subaru Telescope in Hawai’i have made groundbreaking discoveries, unveiling a hidden giant planet and a brown dwarf orbiting distant stars. These remarkable findings are the first successes of OASIS, a project that combines precise space-based data with Subaru’s powerful imaging systems to uncover worlds that are otherwise extremely difficult to see.

The discoveries provide a crucial stepping stone for NASA’s upcoming Roman Space Telescope, which will test new tools designed to image Earth-like planets. Only about 1 percent of stars are known to host massive planets or brown dwarfs that can be directly photographed with today’s telescopes. Even when these objects are young and still glowing from the heat of their formation, they remain vastly dimmer than the stars they orbit.

The long-standing challenge for astronomers has not just been how to see these objects, but knowing where to search in the first place. OASIS addresses this challenge by narrowing down the most promising targets. The survey analyzes measurements from two European Space Agency missions — Hipparcos and Gaia — which track tiny motions in stars caused by the gravitational pull of unseen companions.

Once a star shows signs of being tugged by an invisible object, OASIS turns the Subaru Telescope toward it.