Astronomers Find Exoplanetary System With Configuration Similar to Our Solar System
Posted on July 26, 2012
Astronomers at MIT, the University of California at Santa Cruz and other institutions have detected the first exoplanetary system, 10,000 light-years away, with regularly aligned orbits similar to those in our solar system. Using data from NASA's Kepler space telescope, the astronomers discovered that the star - much like the sun - rotates around a vertical axis and its three planets have orbits that are all in the same plane.
Roberto Sanchis-Ojeda, a physics graduate student at MIT who led the research effort, says, "In our solar system, the trajectory of the planets is parallel to the rotation of the sun, which shows they probably formed from a spinning disc. In this system, we show that the same thing happens."
Josh Winn, an associate professor of physics at MIT and a co-author on the paper, says, "It's telling me that the solar system isn't some fluke. The fact that the sun's rotation is lined up with the planets' orbits, that's probably not some freak coincidence."
The findings were published here in the journal Nature.