Astronomers Just Found A Very Strange Planet With Three Suns
- 8 years ago
Astronomers have discovered an exoplanet that has three suns, and the way it’s affected by them is strange by even experts’ standards.
A team of astronomers led by the University of Arizona has discovered an exoplanet with three suns, and the way it’s impacted by them is strange even by experts’ standards.
Kevin Wagner, the lead author of the study describing exoplanet HD131399Ab, commented, “For about half of the planet’s orbit, which lasts 550 Earth-years, three stars are visible in the sky… giving it…a unique triple-sunset and sunrise each day.”
He further noted, “As the planet orbits…the stars…reach a point where the setting of one coincides with the rising of the other – at which point the planet is in near-constant daytime for…roughly 140 Earth-years."
Another odd aspect of the orb is that it even exists.
Typically planets being influenced by so much stellar gravitational pull end up getting flung out of their solar systems.
How much longer it holds on remains to be seen.
A team of astronomers led by the University of Arizona has discovered an exoplanet with three suns, and the way it’s impacted by them is strange even by experts’ standards.
Kevin Wagner, the lead author of the study describing exoplanet HD131399Ab, commented, “For about half of the planet’s orbit, which lasts 550 Earth-years, three stars are visible in the sky… giving it…a unique triple-sunset and sunrise each day.”
He further noted, “As the planet orbits…the stars…reach a point where the setting of one coincides with the rising of the other – at which point the planet is in near-constant daytime for…roughly 140 Earth-years."
Another odd aspect of the orb is that it even exists.
Typically planets being influenced by so much stellar gravitational pull end up getting flung out of their solar systems.
How much longer it holds on remains to be seen.