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Planetary System Similar to Sol Discovered

Posted by michael on from the all-the-way-back dept.

Anonymous Coward writes: "The Washington Post is carrying its own copy about a planetary system very similar to Sol in the Big Dipper. 47 Ursae Majoris has at least two large gas giants in circular orbits, similar to many of Sol's satellites, and the possibility exists for smaller, currently undetectable rocky planets closer to the primary. Circular orbits are less common than highly elliptical orbits, and are more promising. Read the whole article to find out why."

2 of 321 comments (clear)

  1. more stats by Alien54 · · Score: 3, Informative

    You can see a quick summary of the star here They estimate that the inner planet will remain in the habitable zone for 1.2 gigayears. Right now it is on the outside edge, in the cold zone, with a 3 year orbit. but the expect the star to start to get warmer, and that may heat things up nicely for a while.

    --
    "It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
    1. Re:more stats by Soft · · Score: 3, Informative
      (Hate to reply to myself...)

      OK, I found another article about this at SpaceRef. Your data is correct, and they found a second planet beyond that one. Still, I'm not sure how a rocky planet could form with those two monsters nearby; it's the "far away from the star" in the WP article that confused me. Of course, they're comparing with those other star systems discovered recently, where gas giants are insanely close to the stars...