Keele: Astronomers Find "Cousin" Planets Around Twin Stars

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Keele Astronomers Find "Cousin" Planets Around Twin Stars
Keele University, UK | WASP Consortium | 2014 Oct 01

An illustration of a planet orbiting one star in a binary system. In WASP-94, the planet would transit the brighter star, causing a dip in the light that can be detected from Earth. Another planet orbits the second star at lower-left. It does not transit and is not directly visible, but it can be detected by its gravitational tug on the second star. [url=http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1241a/][b][i]Image Credit: ESO/L. Calçada/Nick Risinger[/i][/b][/url]

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Astronomers at Keele University have found two new Jupiter-sized extra-solar planets, each orbiting one star of a binary-star system.

Most known extra-solar planets orbit stars that are alone, like our Sun. Yet many stars are part of binary systems, twin stars formed from the same gas cloud. Now, for the first time, two stars of a binary system are both found to host a ``hot Jupiter'' exoplanet.

The discoveries, around the stars WASP-94A and WASP-94B, were made by a team of British, Swiss and Belgian astronomers.

The Keele-led WASP-South survey found tiny dips in the light of WASP-94A, suggesting that a Jupiter-like planet was transiting the star; Swiss astronomers then showed the existence of planets around both WASP-94A and then its twin WASP-94B. Marion Neveu-VanMalle (Geneva Observatory), who wrote the announcement paper, explains: "We observed the other star by accident, and then found a planet around that one also!". ...

WASP-94 A and B planets: hot-Jupiter cousins in a twin-star system - M. Neveu-VanMalle et al

• arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1409.7566 > 26 Sep 2014