Space and astronomy news
Sometimes, it seems like habitable worlds can pop up almost anywhere in the universe. A recent paper from a team of citizen scientists led by researchers at the Flatiron Institute might have found an excellent candidate to look for one – on a moon orbiting a mini-Neptune orbiting a star that is also orbited by another star.
Another planet, known for now at TOI 4633c, is much more intriguing. It falls into the size category of a “mini-Neptune,” meaning it is slightly smaller than the 8th planet in our solar system but is likely still a gas giant with a thick atmosphere. It orbits its host star once every 272 days – making it one of the 40 longest-orbiting planets out of the thousands discovered so far.That long orbit also puts it in the habitable zone of its host star – about .
But what makes this system even more unique is that the star TOI 4633c is orbiting is itself being orbited by another star. It wasn’t long ago that we weren’t even sure if planets could exist in these “binary” systems, and how strange life might be on one has become prominent recently with the popularity of The Three-Body Problem. But in theory, binary systems have habitable zones, and planets can survive in a stable orbit around at least one of the stars.
The smaller star orbits around its larger binary companion only once every 230 years and gets close enough to the other star to be considered relatively close by interstellar standards. As of now, it’s unclear what, if any, effect this proximity to another star would have on TOI 4633c, but it’s doubtful that it would be a world like Tatooine.
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