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new planet discovered with three suns
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| metalgearsolid |
"(Reuters) -- Astronomers have detected a planet outside our solar system with not one, but three suns, a finding that challenges astronomers' theories of planetary formation."
The planet, a gas giant slightly larger than Jupiter, orbits the main star of a triple-star system known as HD 188753 in the constellation Cygnus.
The stellar trio and its planet are about 149 light-years from Earth and about as close to each other as our sun is to Saturn, U.S. scientists reported on Thursday in the current edition of the journal Nature.
A light-year is about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km), the distance light travels in a year.
If you stood on the planet's surface, you would see three suns in sky, although its orbit centers around the main yellow star among the trio. The larger of the other two suns would be orange and the smaller would be red, astronomers at California Institute of Technology said in a statement.
The new finding could upset existing theories that planets usually form out of gas and dust circling a single star, and could lead scientists to look in new places for planets.
"The implication is that there are more planets out there than we thought," the commentary said.
Caltech astronomer Maciej Konacki, who wrote the research article, refers to the new type of planets as "Tatooine planets," because of the similarity to Luke Skywalker's view of his home planet by the same name, with its multiple suns, in the original "Star Wars" film.
The fact that a planet can even exist in a multiple-star system is amazing in itself, according to Konacki. Binary and multiple stars are quite common in the solar neighborhood, and in fact outnumber single stars by some 20 percent.
But so far, most extrasolar planets -- those discovered outside our planetary system -- have been detected by watching for a characteristic wobble in the stars their orbit, reflecting the gravitation pull the planets exert on their suns.
This method is less effective for binary and multiple star systems, and existing theories said planets were unlikely to form in this kind of environment.
Konacki found a new way to identify planets by measuring velocities of all bodies in a binary or multiple star system.
Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Ay we still don't know much about space... |
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| Jackson |
| Cool, we should try to think of a funnier name than Uranus because thats getting old....hmmm |
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| Mr. Pink |
im taking a class on this.
ok so they found another planet, there's gonna be no sign of life on it. It's got fukin 3 suns!!! lol |
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| Streakfury |
Heh, makes me wish I didn't change my mind and actually went on to do BSc Astrophysics.
Then again, all that maths... maybe not. :p |
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| stren |
| quote: | Originally posted by metalgearsolid
Caltech astronomer Maciej Konacki, who wrote the research article, refers to the new type of planets as "Tatooine planets," because of the similarity to Luke Skywalker's view of his home planet by the same name, with its multiple suns, in the original "Star Wars" film.
>>source<<
Ay we still don't know much about space... |
lol i love then science-fiction meets science.
Fascinating news. i love space |
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| stren |
| quote: | Originally posted by Mr. Pink
im taking a class on this.
ok so they found another planet, there's gonna be no sign of life on it. It's got fukin 3 suns!!! lol |
no NIGHT life fo sho !! |
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| Omega_Blue |
| quote: | Originally posted by metalgearsolid
new finding could upset existing theories that planets usually form out of gas and dust circling a single star, and could lead scientists to look in new places for planets.
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i wonder how they figure that? |
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| stren |
| quote: | Originally posted by Omega_Blue
i wonder how they figure that? |
don't ask, don't tell |
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| metalgearsolid |
| I love space and all because we have no clue what is out there and not a clue to how many galaxies are out there. I also like how people believe we have made contact with another species from space. But I have this to say about aliens and UFO's why would an intelligent species want to communicate with us? What do we know that they don't? they were the ones who found us not us finding them. Its like when have we ever tried communicating with an ant? have we no why because they are just a little bug in a big planet. As we are prolly the little bugs in all the galaxies. |
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| XoxidE |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jackson
Cool, we should try to think of a funnier name than Uranus because thats getting old....hmmm |
urectum.:stongue: |
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| Floorfiller |
| quote: | Originally posted by Omega_Blue
i wonder how they figure that? |
well basically you start with intersellar gas floating around...the energy from the formation of the star causes a graviational force that causes the cloud to collapse into a proto planetary disk. once this cloud has collapsed the particles begin to collide and start to acrete and form into larger and larger objects until eventually an object is large enough to have its own gravitational force strong enough to continue pulling things into it acreting to a larger and larger size and eventually you have a planet :wtf: |
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| stren |
| quote: | Originally posted by Floorfiller
well basically you start with intersellar gas floating around...the energy from the formation of the star causes a graviational force that causes the cloud to collapse into a proto planetary disk. once this cloud has collapsed the particles begin to collide and start to acrete and form into larger and larger objects until eventually an object is large enough to have its own gravitational force strong enough to continue pulling things into it acreting to a larger and larger size and eventually you have a planet :wtf: |
yeah, what he said ^^^ |
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