[news] Newly-discovered planet has 3 suns

[elsiegee40]

Fascinating (to me anyway!)

 

Newly-Discovered Planet Has 3 Suns | NASA

 

[6Foot2]

It is a large planet (about 4 times the size of Jupiter) and has significant quantities of methane and liquid water.

 

Link: Planet With Three Suns Discovered

 

http://pop.h-cdn.co/assets/16/27/768x480/gallery-1467908346-wagner4hr.jpg

 

This graphic shows the orbit of the planet in the HD 131399 system (red line) and the orbits of the stars (blue lines).

[Joanne]

That's pretty cool!

[6Foot2]

In other news:

 

Link: Astronomers find evidence of water clouds in first spectrum of coldest brown dwarf

 

 

WISE 0855 is about 5 times the size of Jupiter (HD 131399 is about 4 times as big)

 

...Now, a team led by astronomers at UC Santa Cruz has succeeded in obtaining an infrared spectrum of WISE 0855 using the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii, providing the first details of the object's composition and chemistry. Among the findings is strong evidence for the existence of clouds of water or water ice, the first such clouds detected outside of our solar system.

 

"We would expect an object that cold to have water clouds, and this is the best evidence that it does," said Andrew Skemer, assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz...

 

http://news.ucsc.edu/2016/07/images/wise-image-400.jpg

 

Artist's rendering of WISE 0855 as it might appear if viewed up close in infrared light. (Illustration by Joy Pollard, Gemini Observatory/AURA)