A Europeanspacecrafthas revealed the secrets of a star system that has puzzled researchers for years.
The rare six sextuplet of planets was found thanks to data collected by Cheops the CHaracterising ExOPlanets Satellite.
Its latest discovery emerged from confusion surroundinga star called HD110067.
The star lies around 100 light-years away, in the northern constellation of Coma Berenices.
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Thats when we decided to use Cheops, said Rafael Luque of the University of Chicago.
We went fishing for signals among all the potential periods that those planets could have.
After tapping intodatafrom Cheops, the team detected a third planet in the system.
This unravelled an even bigger mystery.
Orbitally resonant systems like this are extremely rare finds.
Theyre also highly valuable to our knowledge of the universe.
Astronomers use them to understand the formation and evolution of the planetary system.
Understandably, ESA is proud of the role that its played in the new breakthrough.
For Cheops, the missioncontinues.
The small spacecraft still has many more exoplanets to characterise.
Astronomers have hopes that it could even discover one that can sustain life.
Story byThomas Macaulay
Thomas is the managing editor of TNW.
He leads our coverage of European tech and oversees our talented team of writers.
Away from work, he e(show all)Thomas is the managing editor of TNW.
He leads our coverage of European tech and oversees our talented team of writers.
Away from work, he enjoys playing chess (badly) and the guitar (even worse).
