Reuters runs a story out of Cape Canaveral indicating that astronomers have located a planet with three suns:
"The planet, a gas giant slightly larger than Jupiter, orbits the main
star of a triple-star system known as HD 188753 in the constellation
Cygnus ("The Swan")."
Okay, so Tatooine wouldn’t be a gas giant, and it only had the two suns… it’s still cool! For scientists, the finding adds another layer of mystery to the problem of how planets are formed. There is an "artists conception" picture with the story, even though knowledge of the planet is largely theoretical.
Now, if they could only find Magrathea…
Being an Aerospace Engineer and a geek I would love to understand the orbital mechanics of this three sun planet!
Stephen, I feel the same. Two suns is intersting enough. But three? I wonder if there is any kind of periodic season variations. Although being a gas giant and most likely fairly far away from the suns, it’s a moot point.
Pitch Black dealt with the cinematographic effects of multiple suns, but I don’t remember that it tackled the tidal problems.
I believe the mechanics of the 3-star system breakdown as follows – 1 large (or very large) star with 2 white dwarfs pretty much in close orbit, like moons to Jupiter. The other planet is sufficiently far from the three stars that the gravitational effects are not all that dicernably different from a single star. (e.g., how much is the orbit of Earth or Jupiter perturbed by the existance of Mercury and Venus?)
Jamie: Your’re probably correct.
However that would be boring. So let’s say that two of the three suns are in highly unstable orbits and in 464,054 years they will collide. The resultant explosion will hurl the third sun at near relativistic speeds directly at our solar system. After another 237 years it will arrive in our solar system causing untold havoc.
I’m going to go build a shelter right now!
Tim, I’ll bet somebody would sell you a leftover crate of dried foodstuff from y2k.