{"id":200977,"date":"2024-12-07T15:34:30","date_gmt":"2024-12-07T21:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/this-could-be-the-first-known-planet-in-the-universe-to-orbit-three-suns-at-once"},"modified":"2024-12-07T15:34:30","modified_gmt":"2024-12-07T21:34:30","slug":"this-could-be-the-first-known-planet-in-the-universe-to-orbit-three-suns-at-once","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/this-could-be-the-first-known-planet-in-the-universe-to-orbit-three-suns-at-once","title":{"rendered":"This could be the first known planet in the universe to orbit three suns at once"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/this-could-be-the-first-known-planet-in-the-universe-to-orbit-three-suns-at-once.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Perched in the constellation Orion, 1,300 light-years from Earth, lies GW Orionis, a unique triple-star solar system. Unlike most known systems, GW Orionis features two stars orbiting each other closely, while a third star circles at a much greater distance. Surrounding these stars are three enormous, misaligned rings of planet-forming dust, creating a striking bullseye pattern in the sky.<\/p>\n<p>Recent studies, published in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/science.aba4633\"> Science<\/a> and The Astrophysical Journal Letters, suggest that these rings may harbor a young planet\u2014or the makings of one. This celestial body could explain the dramatic misalignment of the system\u2019s inner ring, which appears to wobble like a broken gyroscope. If confirmed, this would be the first known planet orbiting three stars simultaneously.<\/p>\n<p>Nienke van der Marel, astrophysicist and co-author of the May 21 study, noted that the combined gravitational pull of the three stars alone cannot account for the rings\u2019 behavior. Instead, the presence of a planet carving a gap in the disk could be disrupting the system\u2019s balance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Perched in the constellation Orion, 1,300 light-years from Earth, lies GW Orionis, a unique triple-star solar system. Unlike most known systems, GW Orionis features two stars orbiting each other closely, while a third star circles at a much greater distance. Surrounding these stars are three enormous, misaligned rings of planet-forming dust, creating a striking bullseye [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200977\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}