Jul 14 2005
From The Space Library
Maciej Konacki of the California Institute of Technology reported the first discovery of a planet occupying an orbit among three stars. The planet, dubbed HD 188753, has a mass that is slightly larger than Jupiter. HD 188753 closely orbits a primary star, along with a pair of similarly sized stars. According to scientists, Konacki's findings challenged conventional scientific understanding of the architecture of planetary systems. Scientists had believed that other planetary systems have a structure like Earth's solar system, in which only planets~and not stars~orbit a star. Konacki's research cast doubt on conventional theories of planetary system development, because his findings provided the first evidence that a planet could develop and survive in a gravitationally complex stellar system. According to conventional scientific theory, HD 188753's two companion stars would have burned away the primary star's surrounding gas and dust, which would have provided the materials to form the new planet. In addition, although other existing theories had suggested that a planet of HD 188753's size could have migrated to the massive star from elsewhere, those theories had posited incorrectly that the secondary pair of stars would have prevented HD 188753 from orbiting the primary star as closely as does. HD 188753 completes a single orbit in 3.4 Earth days. (John Noble Wilford, “Discovery of a First: A World with 3 Suns,” New York Times, 15 July 2005; Maciej Konacki, “An Extrasolar Giant Planet in a Close Triple-Star System,” Nature 436, no. 7048 (14 July 2005): 230- 233.)
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