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Distant planets seen in strange alignment
Wednesday, October 3, 2012 23:06
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TOKYO, Oct. 3 (UPI) – Two exoplanets have been detected forming a never-seen-before celestial alignment, a phenomenon so new it doesn’t yet have a name, Japanese astronomers say.
Teruyuki Hirano of the University of Tokyo and colleagues used data from the Kepler space telescope to probe KOI-94, a star seemingly orbited by four planets, looking for a momentary dimming of the star’s light when the planets transited, or passed in front of, the star.
Two planets transiting at the same time would dim the star even more, they said, but if they also overlap there is a momentary increase in brightness as the planets cover less of the star.
