UCLA-led astronomers have discovered the first known “disappearing planet” about 1,000 light-years away. The planet, TOI-2535 b, is a “hot Jupiter,” a gas giant that orbits extremely close to its host star. TOI-2535 b whips around its star in only 8.25 days—10 times faster than the 88 days that Mercury takes to go around our sun once.

Researchers observed TOI-2535 b transit its star multiple times over seven years, until they stopped seeing it altogether. But as they show in an article published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, the planet hasn’t truly vanished. Instead, gravity from a neighboring planet is tilting its orbit.

TOI-2535 b was identified in images taken by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) space telescope of the TOI-2535 star system between April 2019 and March 2026. TESS discovers planets by measuring the small changes in a star’s brightness that occur when a planet passes in front of its star, blocking a bit of its light. These events, known as transits, require a precise alignment between the star, planet and our line of sight to be noticeable.