Italian astronomists have found a massive mysterious object outside the solar system which has sparked intense debate whether it is a star or a planet.
Astrophysics expert Gianluca Masi and astronomist Franco Malliani pinpointed the object - dubbed Xo-3b - with the help of 15 colleagues in Belgium, Spain and the United States.
The mysterious giant - at least 12 times the size of the Solar System's biggest planet Jupiter - has properties that have so far proved hard to pin down.
"We can't say it's a planet. So it could be a small star," Masia said.
"We've never seen anything like it before".
The pair's work has been presented at the American Astronomic Society and is set for publication in a range of international journals.
Even though Xo-3b is so big, it was hard to find because of the rays that its Camelopardalis (Giraffe) star system emits.
"It was like finding a needle in a haystack. Our instruments had to be calibrated to perfection," Masi said.
The Italians also found another planet in the Lynx constellation, but it was similar to other non-Solar System planets and about the size of Jupiter.
It has been dubbed Xo-2b.
