Amateur Planet Hunters Find First Planet In a Four-Star System

Posted by samzenpus on Monday October 15, 2012 @05:08AM from the four-suns-are-better-than-one dept.

The Bad Astronomer writes "For the first time, a planet has been found in a stellar system composed of four stars. The planet, called PH-1, orbits a binary star made of two sun-like stars in a tight orbit. That binary is itself orbited by another binary pair much farther out. Even more amazing, this planet was found by two "citizen scientists", amateurs who participated in Planet Hunters, a project which puts Kepler Observatory data online for lay people to analyze. At least two confirmed planets have been found by this project, but this is the first — ever — in a quaternary system."

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Pretty surprising by Grayhand · 2012-10-15 05:32 · Score: 5, Interesting

If planets can form with the gravitational forces of a dual binary system I have to believe virtually all suns have planets of some form. Stars tend to have left over material when they form and that tends to form planets. The more conditions they find that can support planets the more system candidates there are for planets.