Red clump star:
While [exoplanet] 8 Ursae Minoris b was discovered in 2015, follow-up work by [Marc Hon of the University of Hawaii] and his colleagues shows that the host star had already been a red giant and is now shrinking, a phase in which it is called a red clump star. It would have expanded to reach about 70 per cent of the distance between Earth and the sun, which should have consumed 8 Ursae Minoris b in the process. “This planet is in a forbidden place,” he says. [“‘Forbidden’ planet somehow escaped consumption by its dying host star,” Jonathan O’Callaghan, NewScientist (4 February 2023, paywall)]
Captured since the red giant phase? Alien artifact? Splotch on the telescope’s sensors?
