Astronomers may have spotted the first planet to orbit three stars

The GW Orionis star system, relatively close at a distance of only 1,300 light years, couldn’t be much more different from our solar system. GW Ori, as astronomers call it, is a triple star system partly surrounded by dusty rings of space trash where planets may be forming.

But a new analysis of the protoplanetary cloud suggests that the process may have already produced some fairly large cosmic fruits.

Researchers led by Jeremy Smallwood, a recent PhD. a graduate in astronomy from the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, noticed a large and puzzling gap in the dusty discs, which are not only broken but also warped.

“We suggest that the presence of a massive planet (or planets) in the disk separates the inner and outer disks,” wrote Smallwood and colleagues in an article published last month in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. “The rupture of the disk in GW Ori is probably caused by undetected planets – the first planet (s) in a circumtriple orbit.”

Planets hidden in dirty belts are likely gas giants like Jupiter, which tend to form earlier in a system’s history than rocky planets like Earth.

Astronomers have already discovered planets in three-star systems, such as LTT 1445Ab which has three suns in its sky, but which only orbits on one of the stars. If there are any confirmed planets around GW Ori, they would be the first to be seen moving around a trio of stars.

It also means that there could be a lot going on in the gravitational-bound celestial trash cans swirling around distant stars.

“It’s really exciting because it makes the theory of how planets form really sound solid,” Smallwood said in a statement. “It could mean that the formation of the planets is a lot more active than we thought, which is pretty cool.”

And we thought the double sunsets over Skywalker Farm on Tatooine were mind blowing. Truth is always stranger than fiction.