GW Orionis: Astronomers discover massive planets orbiting 3 stars

Our solar system may be slightly kooky compared to most other stars in the Milky Way as astronomers suggest that most stars in our galaxy have their own stellar companions.

In September 2020, NASA had shared a video of this on its Astronomy Picture of the Day webpage, where each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

After constructing a comprehensive model of GW Orionis, astronomers found explanation for the space in the disk which pointed toward the possibility of presence of one or more massive planets.

Gas giants are usually the first planets to form within a star system. Terrestrial planets like Earth and Mars follow, said researchers.

The GW Orionis is one such example of a hierarchical triple star system, associated with the Lambda Orionis star-forming region. It first caught the attention of astronomers when it was published, as MHA 265–2, in a list of stars whose spectra have bright H and K lines of calcium.

GW Orionis has a massive protoplanetary disk surrounding it. The dust continuum emission suggests a disk radius of approximately 400 astronomical units. The disk has an inclination of 137.6° and observations of the disk made with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array identified three separate dust rings.

The multiple nature of GW Orionis was first discovered by Robert D. Mathieu, Fred Adams, and David W. Latham during a radial velocity survey of late-type H-alpha emission stars in the Lambda Orionis Association.

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