https://www.scidev.net/global/news/rising-temperatures-carbon-could-bump-up-arsenic-in-rice/

Iain Todd

Published: April 20, 2025 at 4:59 am

Astronomers have found a planet orbiting a pair of stars at a 90° angle.

Known as a 'polar planet' because it orbits above and below the poles of its host star, this is the first time astronomers have found evidence of such a planet orbiting two stars at once.
The discovery was made using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT).

Polar planets around binary stars
Binary stars – two stars that orbit one another – are common across the Galaxy, and some even have planets orbiting them.

Astronomers often refer to a planet orbiting a binary star pair as a 'Tatooine-like' world, in reference to the fictional planet in Star Wars in which two moons can be seen in the sky.



Artist’s impression of exoplanet 2M1510 (AB) b, a polar planet that orbits a pair of brown dwarfs perpendicular to their orbital plane. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada


However, planets orbiting distant binary stars usually orbit in the same plane as the stars' orbits.

While there had been previous hints that polar planets – planets orbiting perpendicular to their star's orbital plane – exist around binary stars, this is the first strong evidence of such an alignment.

More:
https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/news/polar-planet-2m1510-ab-b-binary-brown-dwarfs
The study was led by Thomas Baycroft, a PhD student at the University of Birmingham, UK, and published in Science Advances.