Unprecedented ground-based discovery of two strongly interacting exoplanets

Artistic view of the strongly interacting exoplanetary system WASP-148. The planet WASP-148c is shown in front. On the back, one can see the planet WASP-148b transiting the host star around which the two planets are in orbit. Institut d'astrophysique de Paris, Mark A. Garlick). Several interacting exoplanets have already been spotted by satellites. But a new breakthrough has been achieved with, for the first time, the detection directly from the ground of an extrasolar system of this type.  An international collaboration including CNRS researchers 1 has discovered an unusual planetary system, dubbed WASP-148, using the French instrument SOPHIE at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence (CNRS/Aix-Marseille Université) .