Sat Mar 23, 2024 11:33 pm by globalturbo
A team of astronomers have spotted a nearby rocky planet with three red suns and they think it could have an atmosphere. LTT1445Ab is roughly 1.38 times the size of Earth and over 22 light-years away. The stars in the system are M dwarfs that whirl around each other in a complex dance. That makes LTT 1445Ab the second closest known transiting exoplanet to Earth, and the closest one orbiting an M dwarf. The rocky planet orbits its star at just one-tenth the distance between the Sun and Mercury. Standing on the surface of the planet you'd see one big orange sun and two much smaller red suns in the distance. The primary star would look really big in the sky and the other two are much farther away. They'd look like 100 times brighter than Venus, and about the same size in the sky. LTT1445Ab's main star is approximately 25 percent the size of the sun, and its companion stars are smaller. With three suns, the planet will see different weird combinations of sunrises and sunsets. Imagine a planet with triple sunrises and sunsets every day for part of the year, and nonstop daylight at other times. "Three Red Suns in the Sky: A Transiting, Terrestrial Planet in a Triple M Dwarf System at 6.9 Parsecs," published in the Astronomical Journal.
https://youtu.be/mOYvUQWCvsk
