Enormous 'strange' planet that is 'unlike any other' discovered

Scientists have found a massive new planet that is unlike anything in our solar system - and it could be like a "wrecking ball".

Astronomers have spotted a giant exoplanet that could be like no other they've ever seen before.

The new planet, labelled HR 5183 b, has three times the mass of Jupiter and travels on a long, egg-shaped path around its star.

According to Caltech, the planet takes 45 to 100 years to complete one orbit around its sun.

"If this planet were somehow placed into our own solar system, it would swing from within our asteroid belt to out beyond Neptune," Caltech said in a statement.

"This planet is unlike the planets in our solar system, but more than that, it is unlike any other exoplanets we have discovered so far.

"Other planets detected far away from their stars tend to have very low eccentricities, meaning that their orbits are more circular. The fact that this planet has such a high eccentricity speaks to some difference in the way that it either formed or evolved relative to the other planets."

Scientists' study of the newly discovered planet will be published in The Astronomical Journal, according to Fox News.

n illustration comparing the "eccentric" orbit of HR 5183 b to the more circular orbits of the planets in our own solar system. Photo / W. M. Keck Observatory

The Lick Observatory in Northern California, the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the McDonald Observatory in Texas all provided data for the study.

While the planet's star, HR 5183, had been studied since the '90s, HR 5183 b's epic journey meant that experts lacked full orbit information.

"This planet spends most of its time loitering in the outer part of its star's planetary system in this highly eccentric orbit, then it starts to accelerate in and does a slingshot around its star," said Caltech Professor of Astronomy Andrew Howard, who leads the California Planet Search.

"We detected this slingshot motion. We saw the planet come in and now it's on its way out. That creates such a distinctive signature that we can be sure that this is a real planet, even though we haven't seen a complete orbit."

Experts believe that the planet's strange orbit is likely because it nudged another similar-size planet out of the solar system.

"This new-found planet basically would have come in like a wrecking ball," said Howard, in the statement. "Knocking anything in its way out of the system."