Scientists discover rare six-planet system that moves in strange synchrony

theodewere, 5 months ago

"We think only about one percent of all systems stay in resonance, and even fewer show a chain of planets in such configuration," said Luque. That why HD110067 is special and invites further study: "It shows us the pristine configuration of a planetary system that has survived untouched."

this is amazing, i had not heard about this phenomenon.. they think most planetary systems evolve with resonant orbits among sub-Neptune planets, but those orbits end up getting perturbed by large events.. this one has remained untouched, and it's pretty close to home..

ivanafterall, 5 months ago

What a pleasantly alliterative title. There's a poem there somewhere. That strangely synchronous system of six.

0421008445828ceb46f496700a5fa6, 5 months ago

reminds me of this video from Steve Mould with some more explanation on why

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyn64b4LNJ0

hillbicks, 5 months ago

One thing that I miss about reddit are the top votes comments on science articles. They would often provide a good explanation of the article from someone familiar with the matter.

I guess it takes a little bit of time, just came to my mind.

Interesting article nonetheless, thanks for posting.

DaMonsterKnees, 5 months ago

Yes, but I also always had to remind myself that, ok, but on the internet, everyone is a dog. I should use this dog’s useful suggestion to continue my research accordingly. I shouldn’t just assume this supposed experts word is gospel cause upvotes.

sanguinepar, 5 months ago

Yeah, it’d be great to read "Astronomer here!” followed by a wall of really interesting text.

OlinOfTheHillPeople, 5 months ago

The redditor you guys are referring to is Andromeda123. Here is her explanation:

Andromeda321 commented 3 hr. ago

Astronomer here! Interesting result! “Stable” is not really the right word for this discovery- I mean, our own solar system’s planets are pretty stable- but instead the interesting thing here is the planets are in resonant orbits with each other. Resonant orbits occur when the orbits of planets or moons end up in sync with each other, as shown for this system in this video. (My favorite example resonant system though is still this video of TRAPPIST-1, which turns out to play great music!)

In this case, the system, HD 110067 (~400 light years from us), was found in TESS satellite data to have six planets in resonant orbits- so precise, in fact, that they first found the innermost 3 planets, then could find the other 3 based off predictions in the resonances! The paper has the full gory details, but they’re all “sub-Neptune” planets ~2-3x the radius of Earth- a category called “sub-Neptune,” and thought to be gassy planets in this case- and HD 110067 is the brightest star to host more than 4 planets (that we know of). The reason this system is interesting is because it implies nothing catastrophic has happened since it first formed over a billion years ago or so- in our own solar system, for example, we know planets crashed into each other quite a bit (for example, Earth was smacked by a Mars-sized planet, giving us our moon). This system though didn’t have that else you wouldn’t have these planets in such tight resonance, which gives astronomers a great system to study where things are roughly like they were like when it first formed.

The real conclusion here though is, yes, should make a fascinating JWST target! :D I’m sure we’ll read about those results sooner over later.

Shyfer, 5 months ago

Thanks for populating Lemmy with interesting Reddit content without me having to go to Reddit!

paddirn, 5 months ago

It was great for getting an “insider’s perspective” on what were sometimes sensationalized science news headlines. There’d be some random guy, “Hey there, I work down the hall from the team that’s been working on this, absolutely stunning results, blah blah blah” or “I work in this field and this has been known about for a decade, there’s absolutely nothing to this thing and it’s not practical because of X, Y, and Z.” Random experts just popping up out of nowhere to add context.