A close-in giant planet escapes engulfment by its star

When main-sequence stars expand into red giants, they are expected to engulf close-in planets(1-5). Until now, the absence of planets with short orbital periods around post-expansion, core-helium-burning red giants(6-8) has been interpreted as evidence that short-period planets around Sun-like stars do not survive the giant expansion phase of their host stars(9). Here we present the discovery that the giant planet 8 Ursae Minoris b(10) orbits a core-helium-burning red giant. At a distance of only 0.5 au from its host star, the planet would have been engulfed by its host star, which is predicted by standard single-star evolution to have previously expanded to a radius of 0.7 au. Given the brief lifetime of helium-burning giants, the nearly circular orbit of the planet is challenging to reconcile with scenarios in which the planet survives by having a distant orbit initially. Instead, the planet may have avoided engulfment through a stellar merger that either altered the evolution of the host star or produced 8 Ursae Minoris b as a second-generation planet(11). This system shows that core-helium-burning red giants can harbour close planets and provides evidence for the role of non-canonical stellar evolution in the extended survival of late-stage exoplanetary systems.

Automated summary

When main-sequence stars evolve into red giants, they are expected to engulf nearby planets. The absence of short-period planets around core-helium-burning red giants has been considered as evidence that these planets do not survive the expansion phase of their host stars. However, the discovery of the giant planet 8 Ursae Minoris b orbiting a core-helium-burning red giant challenges this interpretation. The system suggests that non-canonical stellar evolution plays a role in the extended survival of late-stage exoplanetary systems.