Khaled Al Moulla

Seven hours: that's how long a year lasts on TOI-4552b. It whips around its star faster than some moons orbit Earth. The star is a dim red dwarf, four times smaller than the Sun, but the planet is so close that it receives hundreds of times more heat than we do.

Scientists search for planets around distant stars by detecting a slight wobble in the star's motion: the planet tugs on the star, making its light shift slightly toward the blue and then toward the red. But stars have their own ripples — dark spots and bright faculae on their surfaces. These also shift the light, making it hard to tell them apart from a planet.