• AutoTL;DRB
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    11 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Astronomers have discovered a six-pack of planets, formed at least 4 billion years ago and remarkably unchanged since, orbiting a nearby sun-like star.

    This striking reminder that mathematics governs the universe comes with another implication, which is that these six planets have been in a stable, predictable, two-by-three orbital pattern since they were formed at least 4 billion years ago.

    The resonant orbits of these planets are consistent with the idea that this system has been free of any major disturbance — say, a catastrophic impact, or the close passage of another star — for billions of years.

    This unusual orbital pattern is prominent in the grabby title of the new paper: “A resonant sextuplet of sub-Neptunes transiting the bright star HD 110067.”

    “Occasionally, nature reveals an absolute gem,” Sara Seager, a professor of planetary science at MIT and a co-author of the new paper, said in an email.

    This new planetary system will get a close look from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which orbits the sun about a million miles from Earth and is designed to glean information about the atmospheres of exoplanets.


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