Exoplanet Found Orbiting Trio of Stars
A newly-discovered exoplanet with the catchy name of LTT 1445 A b lives in a solar system containing three suns. This rocky world orbits one of the stars, which in turn orbits two others. The system sits just 22 light years from Earth, placing this planet well within our cosmic neighborhood.
The surface of this world is as hot as an oven — roughly 160 degrees Celsius (320 Fahrenheit), and the planet orbits its nearest sun once every five days. This super Earth has a mass around 2.2 times the mass of our home planet contained in a world just 38 percent larger than our own. This high density of LTT 1445 A b suggests it is almost certainly rocky. The views from the surface of this scorching hot world, however, would be surreal for any observer who set foot on the planet.
“If you’re standing on the surface of that planet, there are three suns in the sky, but two of them are pretty far away and small-looking. They’re like two red, ominous eyes in the sky,” Jennifer Winters, astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics states.
The planet was found through the transit method, in which astronomers note the dip in brightness seen from stars as planets orbit in “front” of their suns, as seen from Earth. Periodic dips in the amount of light received from the star can betray the presence of an unseen planet. By measuring…
