A binary star system has been found that has planets revolving around them as well. For astronomers, this is a rare find as most binary star systems found do not have planets around them. The planets found on the twin star system appear to be massive ones as well.
Most planets found rarely are as big as Jupiter. What makes the discovery impressive is that not only are the planets orbiting two stars but they are massive as well. The two stars are HD 133121A and HD 133131B. The stars also orbit each other at only 33.5 billion miles apart, a rather close one for binary stars.
HD 133121A has two planets around it, according to Sky News. One planet is 1.5 times the size of Jupiter while the other is half its size. HD 133131B has a planet about 2.5 times the size of Jupiter.
The planets have been discovered using data from the Planet Finder Spectrograph. This is mounted on the Magellan Clay Telescopes found at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. The Spectrograph has been developed by the Carnegie Institute for Science. The team doing the research is headed by Johanna Teske.
What is of interest with the discovery is that the stars are described as metal poor. They don't have the elements of iron and oxygen needed to produce large planets, as Science Daily reports. Instead the two stars have more hydrogen and helium on them.
The two stars also have slightly different compositions, leading researchers to think that one of them probably pulled in some small planets into it, which then changed its composition. The discovery of the massive planets might help in solving how our solar system was formed and what was the role of the giant planets in its formation.
"We are trying to figure out if giant planets like Jupiter often have long and eccentric orbits," Teske said. The two stars are also old, at about 95 billion years old, which might explain its hydrogen and helium composition.
Stars can help us know more about the universe, as iTechPost reports about white dwarfs and its relation to dark matter shows.
