Scientists Discovered A Super-Compact Star System
Astronomers and researchers using NASA’s pioneering Kepler space observatory have discovered what they are describing as the most “crowded” alien planetary system yet found. It’s a super-compact star system unlike what we’ve seen before.
All five planets in the super-compact star system surround a star called “KOI-500,” and orbit at least twelve times closer to their sun than the Earth does to ours. These planets are tightly packed within a region that is significantly smaller than we see in our system.
As reported by Space.com, the super-compact star system is approximately 1,100 light-years away, in the constellation Lyra, the harp. KOI-500’s mass is about the same as that of our Sun, but only three-quarters of its diameter. The star is about 1 billion years old, which is less than one-quarter of our home star’s age.
The planets in this super-compact star system vary from 1.3 to 2.6 times the size of Earth. The “years” on each planet are also understandably short.
Relative to the Earth, each planet in this super-compact star system only takes a few days to make a complete circuit around KOI-500. Astronomers have calculated each planet’s “yearly” duration in Earth days, which are 1.0, 3.1, 4.6, 7.1, and 9.5 days long, respectively.
Darin Ragozzine, the lead author of the NASA planetary study and a scientist at the University of Florida at Gainesville, explained:
All five planets zip around their star within a region 150 times smaller in area than the Earth’s orbit, despite containing more material than several Earths. At this rate, you could easily pack in 10 more planets, and they would still all fit comfortably inside the Earth’s orbit.
Ragozzine notes that the most interesting thing about the super-compact star system is its four outer planets, which seem to have a synchronized orbit like no other solar system NASA astronomers have discovered.
“These four planets come back to a similar orbital configuration about every 191 days,” says Ragozzine. NASA Astronomers have called this occurrence “four-body resonance.” Not to be confused with the 3 Body Problem, planets in this alignment return to a similar orbital spacing every 191 days. So, it’s just about half a year difference in what we see on Earth.
And because the planets operate like this and are so closely aligned, there’s definitely a chance they have a gravitational impact on each other as well. This is the universal and galactic equivalent of piling clowns into the car. It’s all quite packed in the KOI-500 system.
It’s unlikely we will get to this star system anytime soon, and the planets’ proximity to KOI-500 makes it a different problem altogether. But even learning about these new systems continues to give us much-needed insight into the rest of the galaxy.
