Planet With Four Suns Discovered

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The research happening in Space just keeps getting better. Today, scientists announced the discovery of a sun that is lit up by four suns.

The planet, which is about 5,000 light years away from us earthlings, orbits one pair of stars and has a second pair revolving around it.

The discovery was made by a two of volunteers, Kian Jek of San Francisco, and Robert Gagliano from Cottonwood, Arizona, for Planethunters.org and has been named PHI, after the website. The volunteers “spotted faint dips in light caused by the planet passing in front of its parent stars. The team of professional astronomers then confirmed the discovery using the Keck telescopes in Mauna Kea, Hawaii.”

Researchers believe the planet to be a “gas giant” that is slightly larger than Neptune, but more than six times the size of Earth.

“All four stars pulling on it creates a very complicated environment. Yet there it sits in an apparently stable orbit,” said Dr. Chris Linott from the University of Oxford.

“That’s really confusing, which is one of the things which makes this discovery so fun. It’s absolutely not what we expected.”

Image Credit: NASA