#ternary

That setup works for our star, but what about more complicated solar systems with two or even three stars? This image shows an observation (right) of a growing 3-star solar system made using the European Space Agency’s Very Large Telescope, as well as a model of the solar system (left) made incorporating data from both the VLT and from the ALMA radio telescope. In this case, one of the rings of dust forming around the star has been twisted by interaction with the 3 stars forming at the center; there is a disk of dust outside of it but if this inner ring forms a planet, it would be moving at an angle to the rest of the disk. Some members of the team analyzing this work in fact believe that the gravity of a planet is in fact already demonstrated, as it would have helped clear out the gaps between the rings. This observation shows us that in complicated binary and ternary star systems, there may be populations of exoplanets existing outside of what we thought of as the main disk around the star. Apparently, all that gravity is enough to make things come out extremely complicated, and one wonders about how stable these orbits would be over the age of a solar system. -JBB Image credit: ESO https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2014/ Original paper: https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.aba4633