This May Be the First Planet Found Orbiting 3 Stars at Once

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Source: By Jonathan O’Callaghan, The New York Times. 

Excerpt: It’s called a circumtriple planet, and evidence that one exists suggests that planet formation is less unusual than once believed. ...GW Ori is a star system 1,300 light years from Earth in the constellation of Orion. It is surrounded by a huge disk of dust and gas, a common feature of young star systems that are forming planets. But fascinatingly, it is a system with not one star, but three. ...GW Ori’s disk is split in two, almost like Saturn’s rings if they had a massive gap in between. ...Scientists have been trying to explain what is going on there. Some hypothesized that the gap in the disk could be the result of one or more planets forming in the system. ...Now the GW Ori system has been modeled in greater detail, and researchers say a planet — a gassy world as massive as Jupiter — is the best explanation for the gap in the dust cloud. Although the planet itself cannot be seen, astronomers may be witnessing it carve out its orbit in its first million years of its existence.…

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