Way to bury the lede. What’s remarkable here is that the orbits are resonant.
‘nearby’
100ly away.
In space that is nearby.
If we scaled the milky way to the size of earth, that would be about 15km away.
If we scaled the observable universe to the size of earth that would be about 4mm away.
“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy100 ly years is actually kind of far. It is farther than most of our named stars. I wouldn’t consider it ‘nearby’.
In space that is nearby.
That was my point, Human scale vs astrophysical scale.
100 ly is not in our local intersteller neighborhood. It is 3x farther than even Arcturus.
100 ly is not in our local intersteller neighborhood.
Good thing I never said it was.
In space that is nearby.
Human scale vs astrophysical scale.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Astronomers have discovered a six-pack of planets, formed at least 4 billion years ago and remarkably unchanged since, orbiting a nearby sun-like star.
This striking reminder that mathematics governs the universe comes with another implication, which is that these six planets have been in a stable, predictable, two-by-three orbital pattern since they were formed at least 4 billion years ago.
The resonant orbits of these planets are consistent with the idea that this system has been free of any major disturbance — say, a catastrophic impact, or the close passage of another star — for billions of years.
This unusual orbital pattern is prominent in the grabby title of the new paper: “A resonant sextuplet of sub-Neptunes transiting the bright star HD 110067.”
“Occasionally, nature reveals an absolute gem,” Sara Seager, a professor of planetary science at MIT and a co-author of the new paper, said in an email.
This new planetary system will get a close look from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which orbits the sun about a million miles from Earth and is designed to glean information about the atmospheres of exoplanets.
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