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Two Jovians around a tight binary star system


baric

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From Universe Today: http://www.universetoday.com/86652/new-planetary-system-has-south-african-astronomers-doing-a-double-take/#more-86652

 

And the original source: http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.1404

 

There are a couple of interesting things about this. Notably, we have a very tight binary system (orbit time in hours) with a white dwarf and smaller red dwarf star. X-Ray emissions in this system are high due to the superheating of material being gravitationally pulled to the white dwarf.

 

However, there are at least two Jovian planets (6 & 8 Jupiter masses) in this system. The outer planet currently needs an very eccentric orbit to best fit the data meaning that there are likely more planets hidden in the data, waiting to be confirmed.

 

If they can detect smaller rocky planets closer to the stars, it will be fun to theorize what kind of atmospheres (if any) could evolve under that level of radiation.

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