TOI-201: A wildly different exoplanet system rewrites planetary rules
NASA’s TESS, with help from the Antarctic ASTEP observatory, found TOI-201 a star about 370 light-years away hosting three very different planets. The system includes a rocky super-Earth (~6 Earth masses) with a 5.8‑day year, plus two gas giants—TOI-201b (about half Jupiter mass, 53‑day orbit) and a much more massive companion (~16 Jupiter masses, ~2,883‑day or ~7.9‑year orbit). The outer planet’s highly inclined, eccentric orbit perturbs the inner planets, causing real-time changes in orbital orientation and transit timing. This results in transits that shift over time and, in about 200 years, may no longer line up to transit the star. The configuration is unlike the common “peas in a pod” pattern and provides new clues about how planetary systems reorganize after formation; the findings were published in Science on April 15.
