An
artist’s rendering of a distant solar system shows two newly discovered
planets – one resembling Jupiter (middle) and one resembling Saturn
(middle right). Both planets orbit a star that is about half the size
of our sun
Washington: A team of international scientists has
discovered a solar system nearly 5,000 light years away in our galaxy,
which has scaled-down versions of Jupiter and Saturn.
The
simultaneous discovery of two planets is rare and this was the first
time researchers had the opportunity to do so using a technique called
gravitational microlensing.
The star and its planets were
observed when they passed in front of a more distant star in 2006. A
lensing effect magnified the light of the distant star 500 times, the
researchers explained.
“We found a solar system that looks like
a scaled-down analogue of our solar system,” said Scott Gaudi of Ohio
State University in the US, who led the study.
The new solar
system, described in Friday’s issue of the journal Science, has two
planets of similar size and orbit to Jupiter and Saturn. The star is
smaller, dimmer and fainter than our sun and the two planets are less
massive than Jupiter and Saturn, but orbit at distances similar to the
distances that Jupiter and Saturn orbit our own sun.
“So it looks like a scale model of our solar system,” Gaudi said.
“This
is the first time something analogous to our solar system has been
found,” said Kem Cook, one of the researchers at the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory (LLNL) and a pioneer in gravitational microlensing.
“This indicates that our kind of planetary system is relatively common and that
in and of itself is exciting,” he added.
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