Spacecraft finds a positively enormous planet 12 times Jupiter's mass

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away.

The mission expected to take place next year.

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of stars.

Gaia-4b is considered a super-Jupiter planet, a relatively cold gas giant, orbiting its star in more than 570 Earth days. The star itself is estimated to be about 64 percent the mass of the sun. This makes Gaia-4b one of the most massive planets known to orbit a small star.

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were published in

According to the space agency, this is also known as astrometry. Since its launch in 2013, the spacecraft has employed a pair of optical telescopes to scan the sky. Because of its precise capability to track the movement of stars, scientists believe that its data has the potential to lead to a discovery of thousands of new things.

The Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, made some very important follow-up observations.

Massive planets orbiting small stars are not very common," said Guðmundur Stefánsson, lead author of the study, in a statement, "but when they do exist, they produce a bigger wobble, resulting in a more noticeable astrometric signature that's easier to detect.

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