Very first planet in triple star system possibly detected

In 1949, a team of astronomers discovered a star 1,300 light years from Earth, at the head of Orion the Hunter. Since then, astronomers have discovered that the star – GW Orionis – has two stellar companions. Now, astronomers using observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array (or ALMA) telescope in northern Chile say they have detected evidence of a planet orbiting the triple star system, making it the first in the kind. And a potential IRL Tatooine one-upper.

ESO / Exeter / Kraus et al., ALMA (ESO / NAOJ / NRAO)

SYFY wire reported the detection of what may be the very first recorded planet (or planets) orbiting a triple star system. One which is a “hierarchical trinary” because two of the member stars gravitate closely around each other, the third being more distant. Astronomers used observations from ALMA, an assembly of 66 radio telescopes, for their analysis.

In an article published in the journal Monthly notices from the Royal Astronomical Society, astronomers explained how they analyzed the dust disk around the triple star system. They applied orbital and particle simulators to ALMA observations of both the trinary system itself and the disc with vacancies.

Prior to this study, astronomers hypothesized that the gaps in the disk could be the result of the pair of the outer star of the hierarchy. That is, the result of the gravity of the outer star pulling on the disc, warping and breaking into bands. But astronomers have found that the presence of a massive planet (or planets) is more likely behind the disc’s gaps.

Although astronomers have no direct evidence for the planet (s), the hypothesis seems to coincide with how planets are formed in general. In our own solar system, for example, the planets orbiting the Sun originally formed from a disk of dust surrounding their mother star.

ESO / L. Road, Exeter / Kraus et al.

“It’s really exciting because it makes the theory of planetary formation really robust,” Jeremy Smallwood, lead author of the study and recent PhD. a graduate in astronomy from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said in a press release. “It could mean that the planet’s shaping is a lot more active than we thought, which is pretty cool,” Smallwood added. Indeed, we may have to start considering the possibility of not only IRL Tatooines, but also Batuu systems.