In the constellation of Cygnus , 1,100 weak - years from Earth , there ’s a curious planetary arrangement with five small planets orbiting all very airless to their whizz Kepler-80 . The system was discovered in 2012 , but only now are uranologist able-bodied to confirm the accurate dynamics of the system .
Undergraduate scholar Mariah MacDonald from the Florida Institute of Technology , together with her Professor Darin Ragozzine and collaborators from other universities , discovered that the four outermost major planet have masses between four and six times that of Earth , with two of them being much wider due to puffy atmospheres .
This star organization is known as a STIP ( scheme with tightly - pack inner planet ) , and research worker are concerned in STIPs because they can help us understand how planets , even in our own Solar System , reach their present - day celestial orbit . The findings have been bear for publication in the Astrophysical Journal , and are availableonline .
The planets most likely mould further aside from the star , and at a later time moved from these proscribed orbital cavity in a unconscious process called planetary migration . The migration had a lowly but important outcome : It synchronized the rotational flow . The planet are now said to be in plangency .
The five satellite revolve Kepler-80 about every one , three , four , seven , and nine Day . The sonorousness helps the system to rest gravitationally unchanging , and it has been observed in the moons of Jupiter as well asother exoplanets .
" The outer four planets return to almost exactly the same configuration every 27 twenty-four hour period , " said Ragozzine in astatement .
By using simulations , the squad was able-bodied to show that ringing actually rise naturally from world-wide migration . The intact system is within 12 million kilometer ( 7.3 million miles ) from the mavin , less than 8 per centum the space between Earth and the Sun .
NASA ’s Kepler observation tower has unwrap hundreds of other STIPs that have between three and seven appendage that take between one and 100 days to orbit their stars . This novel savvy of Kepler-80 will hopefully spearhead more investigation of STIPs and differentiate us something new on how planets form .
