A new study by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) suggests that such exotic worlds orbiting many stars could exist in shifted orbits, far beyond the orbital plane.
The find is important for studying the formation of planets in complex multi-star systems. The study used ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter / Submillimeter Array) in Chile to study 19 protoplanetary disks around binary stars with longer orbits, compared to 12 binaries known to contain exoplanets with rotation periods of less than 40 days discovered the Kepler space telescope.
Planets form in protoplanetary disks surrounding young stars as dust and debris slowly coalesce into worlds. In the case of binaries, these rings are known as circular discs.
“This study provides the necessary context for interpreting the circular planets that the Kepler mission found,” astronomer Ian Chekala of the University of California, Berkeley told Universe Today.
“Using radio observations of circular protoplanetary disks, we can now say something concrete about how many planets are formed with displacement relative to their double stellar planes.”
The discovery of Kepler-16b, the first exoplanet orbiting a multi-star system, was announced in 2011. As the number of exoplanet discoveries grows every day, we are beginning to understand that the complex systems found in orbit of double and multiple stars have their own strange stories.
What can happen in systems with two stars? “We only have a few examples of protoplanetary disks around triple stars (such as) GW Orionis and GG Tauri,” Chekala says.
So there is not enough data to say for sure. The dynamic environment for the ternary system is more complex than for the binary system, so I expect you to see a greater prevalence of strange orbits. '
Our tranquil solar system is an oddball among the stars of the main sequence: it is strange to think that most of the stars you can see with the naked eye tonight are double and multiple stars.
Here's another bizarre fact: no red dwarf – the most common type of star in the universe – is close enough or bright enough to be seen from Earth with the naked eye.
The discovery shows how different other planetary systems can be. In our own solar system, we see that all major planets are on the plane of the ecliptic. But the orbiting of a binary pair of suns can deform the outer circular disk into the misaligned orbits observed in the study.
This article was published by Universe Today.
Sources: Photo: (ALMA, ESO / NAOJ / NRAO, I. Czekala, G. Kennedy and NRAO / AUI / NSF, S. Dagnello)
