Astronomers discover why hot Jupiter TOI-2535 b suddenly vanished from view

Astronomers tracking TOI-2535 b, a hot Jupiter-sized exoplanet located roughly 1,000 light-years from Earth, discovered that it abruptly ceased its regular transits across its host star in March 2026. Data gathered by NASA's TESS satellite between April 2019 and March 2026 revealed that the planet had been regularly crossing between TOI-2535 and Earth for about seven years before the dips in brightness completely vanished. [1][2]

The planet has an average orbital period of 8.25 days, but researchers noticed its transits were fluctuating by up to six hours early or late. Astronomers determined that TOI-2535 b has not been destroyed; instead, strong gravitational tugs from an unseen companion planet orbiting in a different plane are rapidly tilting its path. Samuel Yee of the University of California, Los Angeles, noted that the orbit shifted so quickly that its transits vanished in real time, calling the system the most extreme example of planetary interaction observed. [1][2]

Researchers exploring the origin of the planet's orbit suspect it gradually migrated inward through a protoplanetary disk, which is currently considered more probable than violent gravitational scattering. [2]