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Article: Triple play: a planet with three suns.(This Week)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- July 16, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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From the vantage point of a newly discovered planet 149 light-years from Earth, it isn't hard to look on the bright side: Three suns grace the skies above this hot, Jupiterlike body. The planet tightly orbits the main star of a closely knit trio of stars collectively known as HD 188753.
A planet among a trio of stars isn't merely a novelty. The orb's very existence poses a challenge for how planets form, discoverer Maciej Konacki of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena reports in the July 14 Nature.
Although binary and multiple-star systems are more common in the Milky Way than single stars such as our sun are, many researchers had assumed ...