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Scientific Thoughts

The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility - Albert Einstein

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

There is a near-consensus in the scientific community that large, Jupiter-like planets can only form in systems with only one star (like our Solar System). When there are two or more stars in a system (binary stars, for example), the planetary orbits can get very complicated. The debris material that coalesces to form planets do not form large planets during computer simulations of such systems.
However, scientists will soon be forced to reconsider their theories:). A new planet has been discovered orbiting around a star in a triple-star system in the constellation Cygnus. The planet is a so-called hot Jupiter but it is much closer to its parent star than predicted by current theories of planetary formation.

Through the Artist's Eye: Trinary Sunset (Courtesy: Caltech
In recent years, astronomers have discovered hundreds (as of last month, the count is 155) of planets. Most of these planets are in single-star systems and are large, as the current technology can only detect larger planets with relative ease. However, we know that 60% of the stars in the universe form binary or trinary systems! So the big open question is: are there planets in those systems? The answer seems to be yes:).
The new planet (size similar to Jupiter's) orbits the main star of a triple-star system called HD-188753 every 3.35 days. Two of the stars form a binary system that orbits around the third primary star at an average distance of 12.3 astronomical units, where one astronomical unit (AU) is the average distance between the Sun and the Earth. The planet orbits the primary star at a distance of just 0.05 AU!!
The puzzle: why is the planet so close to the star? Current planetary theories suggest that such a large planet should not be able to form so close to a star in a multi-star system. So a (perhaps major) reworking of the theories might be in order.

Planet With Three Suns!

7/13/2005   6 comments Post a Comment

6 Comments:

At July 15, 2005 6:54 AM, Blogger Sray said...
Think about the primordial disk from which the planets are formed. After our Sun was formed, the dust bands that orbited the Sun (like Saturn's rings) slowly coalesced in different orbits, and formed the planets.

For multi-star systems, it is much harder to maintain such a disk, as the disk is under gravitational pull from all the stars at the same time, and in different directions. As a result, the disk is supposed to fragment, and so it is much much harder to form large planets.

The closer you are to a star, the harder it becomes, since the dust disk becomes more and more chaotic, due to larger gravitational forces.
 
At July 15, 2005 8:10 AM, Blogger Tupinambah said...
Great discovery and great picture. Well spot, well done Sray !;-)
 
At July 15, 2005 8:45 AM, Blogger Sray said...
Thanks, Lucia :)
 
At July 15, 2005 11:57 AM, Blogger broomhilda said...
That's the great think about theories, they are made to be proven right, wrong, and sometimes to be re-worked.
Loved the pic, fasinating read. I shall have to plan a trip there next time I'm out in the solar sail.
 
At July 15, 2005 8:10 PM, Blogger Sray said...
Thanks a lot Broomhild :):)... heyy get some pictures next time u go sailing, will ya?!! :D:D.
 
At July 16, 2005 7:30 AM, Blogger Sray said...
There are such planets, but I dont think this is one of them. The planet has a mass similar to Jupiter, and it takes about 80 times Jupiter mass to form a star!
 

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