Science and Space

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Planet with Three Suns

A Jupiter-class planet orbiting a triple-star system known as HD 188753 was found, according to a report In the July 14 issue of Nature. The three stars are about 149 light-years from Earth and are about as close to one another as the distance between the sun and Saturn.

In other words, a viewer there would see three bright suns in the sky. In fact, the sun that the planet orbits would be a very large object in the sky indeed, given that the planet’s "year" is only three and a half days long. And it would be yellow, because the main star of HD 188753 is very similar to our own sun. The larger of the other two suns would be orange, and the smaller red.

The new type of planet is referes as "Tatooine planets," because of the similarity to Luke Skywalker’s view of his home planet’s sky in the first Star Wars movie.

The fact that a planet can even exist in a multiple-star system is amazing in itself. Binary and multiple stars are quite common in the solar neigborhood, and in fact outnumber single stars by some 20 percent.

Researchers have found most of the extrasolar planets discovered so far by using a precision velocity technique that is easier to employ on studies of single stars.

posted by: kyawoo at 10:38 | link | comments |
astronomy, planets

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