Post by Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe on Jul 13, 2005 20:03:02 GMT -6
Triple sunset on newfound planet
From World Science...
A newfound planet has three suns, a scientist says—a discovery that highlights the unimagined beauties the cosmos still has in store for us, suggests planets are even more common than previously believed, and could rewrite theories of planet formation.
An artist's concept of how a triple sunset might look like near the newfound planet. Since the planet is thought to be a gaseous giant, it would probably be impossible in practical terms to view the sunset from there. Therefore, the artist envisioned the sunset as viewed from a hypothetical moon of that planet. The large yellow sun is already halfway over the horizon. The planet also appears in the upper left. (Caltech)
The California Institute of Technology researcher reported finding the planet in the direction of the constellation Cygnus (The Swan), in a paper published in the July 14 issue of the research journal Nature.
The planet is slightly larger than Jupiter, the author said, and the fact that it’s being pulled in three different directions by the gravity of nearby stars makes it hard to see how it survives. The finding promises to “seriously challenge our current understanding of how planets are formed,” according to an emailed statement from the institute.
It doesn’t orbit the other two, so these aren’t its “suns” in the traditional sense of being stars around which it orbits. But they do circle around the same, main star that the planet orbits. A viewer on the planet would see three bright “suns,” according to Konacki. One of these three suns, the one that the planet orbits, would look huge, he added. This is because the planet is extremely close to that star, and therefore orbits it quickly: its year is only 3½ days long. That star would also be yellow, being similar to our own sun.
More here: www.world-science.net/othernews/050713_triplesunfrm.htm
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Sunrise at 05:31, 05:40 and 05:42...
