Planet Found in 4-Star System

Two amateur astronomers, Kian Jek and Robert Gagliano, have found the first planet, called PH-1, orbiting in a four-star system, consisting of two binary pairs.

It’s bigger than Earth, about six times our radius, or about half the diameter of Jupiter. The mass isn’t well known, but may be as high as 170 times our own mass, though far more likely it’s closer to 20 – 50 times our mass. That makes it closer physically to Uranus and Saturn than Earth, so it’s likely a gas giant.

It’s also hot, with a probable cloud-top temperature of 400+ Celsius (800+° F). Even if it has Earth-sized moons they’re likely to be too hot to be hospitable. And since it’s 5000 light years away, we’re not headed there any time soon, anyway.

But the more interesting thing about this planet is its host stars: PJK-1 orbits a binary star, two stars that orbit each other (like Tatooine, if you like). Six other planets are known to orbit binary stars, but PH-1 is even cooler: the binary star is itself orbited by another binary pair much farther out, making it the first planet found in a four-star system.

So we have two stars orbiting each other, orbited by a planet, and also orbited by two other stars which orbit each other.

In the realm of time and space, I contend that all human endeavor is less than negligible.