Sunday, June 5, 2011

ESO discovers most similar planetary system

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ESO discovers most similar planetary system


Astronomers have discovered a planetary system that contains a minimum of 5 and presumably seven planets orbiting Sun-like star HD 10180. This makes the system additional kind of like ours discovered. The team conjointly found proof that the distances of the planets from their stars follow a daily pattern, as seen in our solar system.

"We have found that it's additional seemingly that the system with most of the planets discovered up to now," said Christophe Lovis, lead author of a paper reporting the result.

"Studies of planetary motion within the new system reveals advanced gravitational interactions between planets and provides us info on the long-term evolution of the system."

The team used the HARPS spectrograph put in within the three.6-m telescope at ESO La Silla, Chile, for a six-year study length of HD 10180, located 127 years light-weight away within the southern constellation of Hydrus.

Astronomers detect little movements of the star caused by the gravitational pull of 5 or additional planets. The 5 strongest signals indicate planets with roughly the mass of Neptune, orbiting with periods starting from six to 600 days. Are between zero.06 and 1.4 times the Earth-Sun distance from its star.

"We have sensible reason to believe that 2 alternative planets are gift," says Lovis.

One of them would be a Saturn-like planet orbiting at two,200 days. the opposite would be the tiniest exoplanet nonetheless discovered, with a mass one.4 times that of Earth. is incredibly near its parent star, solely 2 p.c of the Earth-Sun distance.

"This object makes a star wobble of simply 3 kilometers per hour - slower than walking speed - and this movement is incredibly troublesome to live," says team member Damien Ségransan. If confirmed, it might be a hot rocky planet kind of like Corot-7b.

The inner region of the system is additional populous than ours. in all probability has no gas large like Jupiter. not like our solar system, planets appear to own nearly circular orbits.

Until now, astronomers understand the systems of fifteen years with a minimum of 3 planets. The last record of the insurance was fifty five Cancri, that contains 5, 2 of them are large planets. "The systems of low mass planets just like the one around HD 10180 seems to be fairly common, however their formation history remains a puzzle," says Lovis.

Using the new discovery similarly as information from alternative planetary systems, astronomers found identical of the Titius-Bode law that exists in our solar system: the distances of planets from their stars appear to follow a daily pattern.

They conjointly found a relationship between the mass of a planetary system and also the nature of its parent star.

All terribly huge planetary systems around stars are huge and wealthy in metals, whereas the four lowest mass systems are found around low-mass, metal-poor stars. These properties ensure the present theoretical models.

"This exceptional discovery conjointly highlights the actual fact that we tend to are getting into a replacement era of exoplanet research: the study of advanced planetary systems, and not simply individual planets," says Lovis.

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