2 Planets Share the Same Orbit

Buried in the deluge of information from the Kepler telescope is a planetary system unlike any seen before . Two of its apparent planets share the same orbit around their principal . If the uncovering is corroborate , it would bolster a theory that Earth once apportion its compass with a Mars - sized physical structure that later crash into it , resulting in the lunation ’s establishment .

The two planet are part of a four - planet system dub KOI-730 . They encircle their Lord’s Day - alike parent star every 9.8 days at exactly the same orbital distance , one permanently about 60 degrees ahead of the other . In the Nox sky of one satellite , the other world must appear as a constant , blaze away lighting , never evanesce or brightening .

Gravitational “ sweet musca volitans ” make this possible . When one body ( such as a planet ) orbits a much more monolithic body ( a star ) , there are two Lagrange points along the planet ’s orbit where a third consistence can orbit stably . These lie 60 degrees ahead of and 60 degree behind the belittled objective . For example , groups of asteroids calledTrojanslie at these points along Jupiter ’s orbital cavity .

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In theory , matter in a record of stuff around a newborn virtuoso could meld into so - call “ co - orbiting ” planet , but no one had spotted grounds of this before . “ system like this are not common , as this is the only one we have seen , ” saysJack Lissauerof NASA ’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View , California . Lissauer and fellow worker describe the KOI-730 system of rules in a paper submitted to the Astrophysical Journal ( arxiv.org/abs/1102.0543 ) .

Richard GottandEdward Belbrunoat Princeton University say we may even have grounds of the phenomenon in our own cosmic backyard . The moon is thought to have formed about 50 million year after the nascence of the solar organization , from the debris of a collision between a Mars - sized body and earthly concern . Simulations suggest the impactor , dubbed Theia , must have come up in at a grim stop number . According to Gott and Belbruno , this could only have happened if Theia hadoriginated in a leading or trailing Lagrange pointalong Earth ’s orbit . The new finds “ show the sort of thing we imagined can go on ” , Gott says .

Will KOI-730 ’s co - orbiting planet collide to take form a moon someday ? “ That would be spectacular , ” says Gott . That may be so , but simulations by Bob Vanderbei at Princeton suggest the planet will continue to orbit in lockstep with each other for the next 2.22 million class at least .

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