Astrophysicists discover six planets “close” to Earth “dancing a waltz”

Astrophysicists have discovered a planetary system “close” to Earth made up of six planets that orbit their star in synchrony, as if dancing a waltz, the scientific magazine Nature reported today.

The six planets, which have probably been performing this same “rhythmic dance” since the planetary system was formed billions of years ago, orbit the star HD110067, located about 100 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Cabeleira de Berenice .

According to the authors of the investigation, led by Spanish astrophysicist Rafael Luque, from the University of Chicago, in the United States, this rare planetary system could provide new clues about the formation and evolution of planets.

“This discovery will become a reference for studying how ‘sub-Neptunes’, the most common type of planets outside the Solar System, formed, evolved, what they are made of and whether they have the right conditions to support liquid water in their surfaces”, maintained Rafael Luque, cited in a statement by the University of Chicago.

Observations of the six planets were made with the North American space telescope TESS and the reading data combined with information collected by the European space telescope CHEOPS.

The extrasolar planets in question are in orbital resonance, which occurs when two or more celestial bodies in orbit exert gravitational influence on each other.

In this case, the planet closest to the star HD110067 completes three orbits for every two made by the next planet, a pattern that is repeated among the four planets closest to the star.

Among the planets most distant from the star HD110067, a pattern of four orbits is repeated twice for every three made by the next planet.

“We think that only about one percent of all systems [planetários] remain in resonance, and even fewer show a chain of planets in this configuration”, noted astrophysicist Rafael Luque, adding that “the original configuration” of the HD110067 system “survived untouched”.