There are multiple systems in the galaxy that are similar to our solar system — including even in their architecture, according to Dr Andrew Howard at Caltech, whose exoplanet discovery mission team survey revealed that “our system is quite regular in the grand scheme of things.”
Exoplanet discovery missions are active for a very brief window of a few years. However, to overcome missing any planets with longer orbital periods during these short observations, the California Legacy Survey was set up three decades ago. It monitors star systems as long as possible by gathering data from exoplanet observations.
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Dr. Howard’s team discovered 719 sun-like stars, 177 planets including 14 new ones with sizes ranging from 3 to 6000 times the mass of Earth.
”In most of these systems in our galactic neighborhood, larger planets and giants are located in the chilly outer region (1 to 10 astronomical units (AU) from their host stars) like Jupiter (5AU) and Saturn (9AU), while smaller planets, like Mercury and Mars, tend to orbit to closer to their central star,” he said. 1 AU is equivalent to the distance between Earth and the sun.
Explaining what planetary system architecture actually means, Dr. Howard said that Earth lies in an intermediate tropical zone well-suited to life. “We are starting to see patterns in other planetary systems that make our solar system look a bit more familiar,” he stated in a Caltech release. (AW)
