Discovery of an Exoplanet Orbiting Three Stars
A team of astronomers led by University of Arizona doctoral student Kevin Wagner and NExSS PI Daniel Apai has discovered a planet in a unique position between three stars. The planet, HD 131399Ab, is unlike any other known world – on by far the widest known orbit within a multi-star system. Located about 340 light years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus, HD 131399Ab is believed to be about 16 million years old, making it one of the youngest exoplanets discovered to date, and one of very few directly imaged planets. With a temperature of 850 Kelvin (about 1,070 degrees Fahrenheit or 580 degrees Celsius) and weighing in at an estimated four Jupiter masses, it is also one of the coldest and least massive directly imaged exoplanets.
Read the full NASA press release:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/newly-discovered- planet-has- 3-suns
The article announcing the discovery can be read at:
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2016/07/06/science.aaf9671