Astronomers discover 2 new gas giant planets orbiting a star 138 light years away from Earth

Astronomers have discovered two new gas giant planets, orbiting a star located about 138 light years away from the Earth.

One of the two worlds is a Saturn-mass planet, while the other one is a cold exoplanet several times more massive than Jupiter, researchers said.

The two planets orbit a star HD 27894, which was first detected in 2005 and is about 20 per cent less massive than the Sun.

Researchers led by Trifon Trifonov of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany analysed the archival and new data to find additional planets in the HD 27894 system.

The study detected the presence of two gas giant exoplanets, which received designations HD 27894 c and HD 27894 d.

HD 27894 c has a mass of about 0.16 Jupiter masses, an orbital period of 36 days and is circling its host at a distance of 0.2 Astronomical Units (AU), 'Phys.org' reported.

HD 27894 d has a mass of about 5.4 Jupiter masses. It takes the planet over 14 years to complete one full orbit, as it is located almost 5.5 AU from the host.

"The co-existence of a massive, distant, and moderately eccentric Jovian planet and a possibly resonant inner pair of massive planets makes the HD 27984 system truly unique," the researchers said.

"The planetary system around HD 27894 is important for probing planetary formation and evolution scenarios and illustrates the importance of further follow-up of radial velocity planet hosts," they said.