Rare six-planet star system discovery is music to astronomers’ ears

Show all news items A rare star system with six exoplanets has been discovered with an architecture unchanged for billions of years. The star, HD110067, that is 100 light-years away in the northern constellation of Coma Berenices, has been perplexing researchers for years. Now scientists, including those at the University of Warwick, have revealed the true architecture of this unusual system using NASA and ESA spacecrafts. The first indication of planets orbiting the strange star system came in 2020, when NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) detected dips in the star's brightness that suggested planets were passing in between the star and the TESS spacecraft. A preliminary analysis revealed two possible planets. One with a year (or an orbital period - the time it takes to complete one orbit around the star) of 5.64 days and another with an unknown period at the time. Two years later, TESS observed the same star again.