In a new paper led by Jeremy Smallwood and accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, researchers document their discovery of a planet orbiting a stellar triplet. In the center of this system, GW Ori, are three stars. The inner two are separated by the same distance as the Earth and Sun, and the third star is not quite as far away as Saturn is from our Sun. 

This system is only about a million years old, and it is surrounded by three dust rings. These three dust rings aren’t well-aligned, and computer models indicate that to explain what we see, at least one giant planet needs to exist in the gaps of those dust rings. This means we have now found, for the first time, what appears to be a planet or planets orbiting around three stars. And now we need a sci-fi show to show us what this would look like, or I could paint it this weekend.

More Information

This May Be the First Planet Found Orbiting 3 Stars at Once (New York Times)

“GW Ori: circumtriple rings and planets,” Jeremy L Smallwood et al., 2021 September 17, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society