NASA has discovered a three-star exoplanet, one with a bizarre orbit that has left astronomers puzzled.
The planet, known as the KOI-5Ab, was discovered in 2009 by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, but was “abandoned” by scientists because the Space Telescope had easier-to-identify candidates.
“KOI-5Ab was abandoned because it was complicated and we had thousands of candidates,” David Ciardi, chief scientist at NASA’s Exoplanet Science Institute, said in a statement. “It was easier to pick up than the KOI-5Ab, and I learned something new from Kepler every day, so the KOI-5 was largely forgotten.”
The KOI-5Ab is about 1,800 light-years from Earth. A light year, which measures the distance in space, is about 6 trillion miles.
However, thanks to NASA’s transatlantic surveillance satellite (TESS) and other Earth-based telescopes, KOA-5Ab has been given new life, with researchers discovering its perplexed orbit.
Due to its size, KOA-5Ab is probably a gas giant, similar to Jupiter or Saturn, but surrounds a star in its stellar system, KOA-5A, every five days. It is also out of alignment from at least one of the other two stars and possibly from both.
“We don’t know many planets that exist in three-star systems, and this one is very special because its orbit is tilted,” Ciardi added. “We still have many questions about how and when planets can form in multi-star systems and how their properties compare to planets in single-star systems. By studying this system in more detail, we can gain insight into how the universe produces planets. ”
Instead, KOI-5A orbits KOI-5B with each other every 30 years. The KOI-5C orbits the two once every 400 years, leaving the four celestial objects in an inclined orbit as a result of different planes.
It is unclear what caused the tilted orbit, although they “believe that the second star gravitationally hit the planet during its development, tilting its orbit and causing inward migration,” the NASA statement added. Three-star systems are thought to account for about 10% of all star systems.
The findings were recently presented at a virtual meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
Researchers have discovered other three-star planets in recent memory. In July 2019, it was discovered that the exoplanet LTT 1445Ab orbits one of the three suns, all being described as red dwarfs from the middle to the end of life.
In September 2020, researchers discovered that the GW Orionis star system, which is located at the edge of the constellation Orion, has two stars orbiting each other, the third orbiting the two brothers at a distance of about 740 million miles. Inside the rings there could be dust or the beginnings of a young exoplanet, which could explain the misalignment of the gravitational attraction of the system.
More than 4,000 exoplanets have been discovered by NASA in total, about 50 of which were thought to be habitable by September 2018. They have the right size and the right orbit of their star to support surface water and, at least theoretically, to supports life.