The New Solar System Had 9 Planets

The solar system of human habitation may be the most complex planetary systems known today. But the discovery of a new solar system around the star HD 10180 solar system proves humans are not anything special.

Two of the planets in the very crowded HD 10180 system. (Picture from: http://arstechnica.com/)

The new solar system like our solar system. Located 130 light-years away, this star has a similar character of the sun, from the mass, temperature, brightness, to the chemical content. Even more unique again, take care of the parent star is much more than sun planet. There are nine planets that revolve around this star.

To provide some indication of whether nine planets could happily get along in a compact system, they performed some basic modeling of stable orbits. Not only were the nine planets in relatively stable locations, but there were a couple of gaps that might also fit additional bodies. They estimate that these could be up to twelve times as massive as the Earth without creating a detectable signal in the existing data. So, as we examine HD 10180 further, there's a chance that more planets will make their presence known.

If the results hold up, the inner portion of the system is very crowded. Five of the planets orbit faster than Mercury does, indicating they are quite close in to the star; another two take less than a year to orbit. The remaining two are further out. Two of the planets are less than two times the mass of Earth, and another is about five times. Most of the remainder are Neptune-sized, ranging from 12 to 25 times Earth's mass. The most distant object is massive, roughly 66 times the mass of the Earth or as large as the planet Saturn. The sixth planet spins in a period ranging from 5 to 2,000 days.

A nine-planet system is pretty impressive, as is the fact that we've gone from a few hints of super-Jupiters to having thousands of exoplanet candidates in just a few short years. But things are progressing so rapidly that I wouldn't be surprised to see this mark eclipsed before too long.

"The solar system holds the record as the owner of the largest planet," said astronomer from the University of Hertfordshire, England, Mikko Tuomi. *** [ANTON WILLIAM | DISCOVERY | ARSTECHNICA | KORAN TEMPO 3849]

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