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Above: This illustration shows a planetary system orbitting two sun-like stars. [Lior Taylor / via SDSU]

SDSU Astronomers Discover Planets That Orbit Two Suns

1 posted on 01/21/2012 3:25:34 PM PST by SunkenCiv
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To: SunkenCiv

For them to be going around TWO suns in only 289 days, they’re really moving. Gravitational sheer must be huge. I guess it’s good they’re gaseous.


5 posted on 01/21/2012 3:35:22 PM PST by Track9 (There IS revolution brewing..)
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To: SunkenCiv

Interesting. I would imagine, that this means that this planet is too hot to support life. It must spend large parts of it’s orbit inside of the range of Venus to the sun.


6 posted on 01/21/2012 3:35:51 PM PST by Hawk1976 (It is better to die in battle than it is to live as a slave.)
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To: SunkenCiv
Wonder what the Almanac for those worlds look like.

"Plant foobar root after sun A eclipses sun B but before first spring, unless a second winter will preceed the first spring, but only at high tide."

/johnny

7 posted on 01/21/2012 3:39:47 PM PST by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: SunkenCiv

Unless one of the two suns is a lot bigger that the other, such that the barycenter is inside the larger sun (thus making the smaller sun orbit the larger one just like another planet), I can’t see how the orbit of another planet would be stable.


8 posted on 01/21/2012 3:40:06 PM PST by kidd
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To: SunkenCiv

You probably never heard of the distant planet Mai that orbits a tri-star system. Sometimes referred to as Mai Three Suns.


10 posted on 01/21/2012 3:45:27 PM PST by Larry Lucido (Ron Paul: Favorite of military impersonators everywhere.)
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To: KevinDavis

11 posted on 01/21/2012 3:54:00 PM PST by Vaquero ("an armed society is a polite society" Robert A. Heinlein)
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