Artist's conception of a binary star sunset as seen from the exoplanet Kepler-16b. For some planets, such views may be only temporary. Credit: NASA/Ames Research Center/Kepler Mission
Posted on 02/15/2012 6:43:00 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The gravitational pull of large gas giant planets can affect the orbits of smaller planets; that scenario is thought to have occurred in our own solar system. In some cases, the smaller planet may be flung into a much wider orbit, perhaps even 100 times wider than Pluto's. In the case of single stars, that's normally how it ends. In a binary star system, however, the two stars may play a game of "cosmic pinball" with the poor planet first.
Moeckel and Dimitri conducted simulations of binary star systems, with two sun-like stars orbiting each other at distances between 250 and 1,000 times the distance of the Earth from the Sun. Each star had its own set of planets. The planetary systems would often become unstable, resulting in one of the planets being flung out, where it could be subsequently captured by the other star's gravity. Since the new orbit around the second star would also tend to be quite wide, the planet would be vulnerable to recapture again by the first star. This could continue for a long time, and the simulations indicated that more than half of all planets initially ejected would get caught in this game of "cosmic pinball."
In the end, some planets would settle back into an orbit around one of the stars, but the majority would escape both stars altogether, finally being flung out into deep space forever.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
Artist's conception of a binary star sunset as seen from the exoplanet Kepler-16b. For some planets, such views may be only temporary. Credit: NASA/Ames Research Center/Kepler Mission
Rogue Planet Find Makes Astronomers Ponder TheoryEighteen rogue planets that seem to have broken all the rules about being born from a central, controlling sun may force a rethink about how planets form, astronomers said on Thursday... "The formation of young, free-floating, planetary-mass objects like these is difficult to explain by our current models of how planets form," Zapatero-Osorio said... They are not linked to one another in an orbit, but do move together as a cluster, she said... Many stars in our own galaxy, the Milky Way, may have formed in a similar manner to the Orion stars, she said. So there could be similar, hard-to-see planets floating around free near the Solar System.
by Maggie Fox
October 5, 2000
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“Worlds in Collison” ala Velikvosky?
“collision” sheesh
If there were two sun like stars orbiting each other at 250-1000 AU, a planet at one AU from one of them would see the other sun as a bright star, somewhere between as bright as Venus and Mars, depending on whether it was 250 or 1000 AU away.
Therefore we shouldn’t be able to find planets in a pair star system... But he have so this hypothesis turns out to be crap.
Thanks Lonesome in Massachussets.
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