5 Weird Planetary Systems

Earlier this month, scientists made new discoveries of two new planets orbiting dual stars and suggested that such planets might be common. What's stranger still is that two suns might not be the limit.

In fact, scientists already know that there are solar systems containing many more stars out there. HD98800, a system about 150 light years from Earth, has two pairs of double stars with one set surrounded by a ring of space dust. And then there's Castor, located in the constellation Gemini. Although it appears in the sky as a single point of light, Castor is actually a system made of six stars: three sets of binary stars, all whirling around a common center of mass.

Astronomers haven't found planets in systems such as these?yet. "There's no reason you couldn't have planets around multiple stars," SETI astrophysicis Laurance Doyle says. But the pulls of many different orbits would make it difficult. "Everything would have to balance just right," he says.

A planet in a system like Castor's would be constantly tugged about by the gravity of its many stars. Imagine a rope pull in which you're on one side and six burly guys are on the other, says Doyle. They're yanking on the rope, but they're out of sequence, so you can hold your own. But if all six yank at the same time, you've had it, "and the planet goes zooming out of the system," he says.

Though this makes the existence of a planet in a system with many stars unlikely, it doesn't make it impossible. And if there were such a planet, its sunsets would be incredible.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/deep/5-weird-planetary-systems?src=rss

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