Scientists baffled to see 3 stars ruling one planetary system: Weird space discoveries to blow your mind

Researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in the United States have discovered a rare triple-star system named KELT-4Ab.

The research was published in The Astronomical Journal.

Planetary systems with three stars are very rare. Scientists have found only three instances as such till date.

The KELP-4Ab is the closest planetary system that has three stars. The main star, KELT-A is the brightest among the three stars that have their individual planets.

KELT-A has a giant gas planet, similar in size to Jupiter, that orbits around the star once in three Earth-days.

The two smaller stars, KELT-B and KELT-C, orbit one another over the course of 30 years. The pair completes orbiting around the bigger star (KELT-A) in every 4,000 years.

We bring to you five extraordinary space discoveries:

1. Enormous water cloud:

Water has been believed to be an element exclusive to Earth. Recent studies have discarded this notion as NASA astronomers have found a giant water vapour cloud in space about 12 billion light years from our planet. The cloud of water vapour revolves around a supermassive black hole or a quasar. The cloud holds around 140 trillion times the water that is found on Earth. This discovery proved that water had been present even as early as 1.6 billion years after the Big Bang.

2. The Hell Planet:

Yes, there is a planet nicknamed 'The Hell Planet' orbiting a star named Kepler-78, which is 400 light years from Earth. The planet, named Kepler-78b, has been so named because it holds a high content of lava with a temperature of about 5,150 Kelvin (water boils at 373.2 Kelvin).

3. Giant void:

In 1988, astronomers discovered a galactic space of underdensity or a space void around 1.5 billion light years from Earth. Termed as 'Canes Venatici Supervoid' or 'AR-Lp 36', the Giant Void has a diameter of 1 to 1.3 billion light years. It is by far the largest space void ever seen. It is so big that it holds 17 galaxy clusters inside.

4. Gas cloud:

A giant galactic gas cloud that can eat 40 billion Suns -- this was the description the astronomers attributed to Himiko, an enormous gas cloud that floats in space 12.9 billion light years from our planet. At the time of its discovery, it was said that Himiko "may represent the most massive object ever discovered in the early universe."

5. Diamond Planet:

Yes, you read it right. There is a planet about 40 billion light years from Earth that is largely made out of diamonds. Known as '55 Cancri e', the 'Diamond Planet' is about 8 times the size of Earth and holds a huge amount of highly concentrated carbon particles that turn into diamonds under its crust.

(Source : indiatoday.intoday.in)

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