Unusual Five-Planet Solar System Spotted by Citizen Scientists

The image above shows an artist's rendition of the K2-138 system, the first multi-planet system ever discovered through crowdsourcing research.

(NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Astronomers have discovered what appears to be a five-planet solar system.
The system is the first of its kind to ever be discovered through crowdsourcing research.
The planets are circling the star K2-138.
There may even be even more undetected planets orbiting within the system.

What appears to be a five-planet solar system has been spotted orbiting a star, astronomers say.

The system was spotted circling star K2-138, according to a study on the findings. Raw data from the Kepler space telescope and findings from citizen scientists helped lead to the discovery, which is the first of its kind made through crowdsourcing.

Astronomers reviewed the citizen scientist data and confirmed the existence of the system, reporting that it’s "extremely likely" it contains at least four planets and a possible fifth, according to a release. There have even been some hints at a sixth planet.

The researchers consider all of the planets as sub-Neptune planets, meaning they are between 1.3 and 3.3 times Earth’s radius, but not as large as Neptune, the release stated.

Another interesting trait about this new system: its planets orbit in a resonance chain, according to the researchers, meaning each planet takes roughly 50 percent longer to orbit than the planet that is next closest to K2-138.

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The orbit of the new multi-planet system suggests there are other planets circling the star, as the suspected sixth planet appears to skip two links in the chain, BBC.com reported.

“If you keep going with the resonance chain, you skip 19 days, you skip 27 days and you end up at about 43 days," study co-author and NASA and Caltech scientist Dr. Jessie Christiansen told BBC.com. "That's a really tantalizing clue that we may be missing more planets in this system. If this chain continues, there's a gap."

The resonance pattern may also provide clues about the formation of planetary systems.

"Some current theories suggest that planets form by a chaotic scattering of rock and gas and other material in the early stages of the planetary system's life," said Christiansen. "However, these theories are unlikely to result in such a closely packed, orderly system as K2-138."

"What's exciting is that we found this unusual system with the help of the general public," she added.

Citizen scientists were able to contribute to the research through Zooniverse, an online platform for crowdsourcing research.

"People anywhere can log on and learn what real signals from exoplanets look like, and then look through actual data collected from the Kepler telescope to vote on whether or not to classify a given signal as a transit, or just noise," said Christiansen in the release. "We have each potential transit signal looked at by a minimum of 10 people, and each needs a minimum of 90 percent of 'yes' votes to be considered for further characterization."

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