Circumbinary planet

Typical configuration of circumbinary planetary systems (not to scale), in which A and B are the primary and secondary star, while ABb denotes the circumbinary planet
An artist's impression of the giant planet orbiting the binary system PSR B1620-26, which contains a pulsar and a white dwarf star and is located in the globular cluster M4

A circumbinary planet is a planet that orbits two stars instead of one. The two stars orbit each other in a binary system, while the planet typically orbits farther from the center of the system than either of the two stars. In contrast, circumstellar planets in a binary system have stable orbits around one of the two stars,[1] closer in than the orbital distance of the other star (see Habitability of binary star systems). Studies in 2013 showed that there is a strong hint that a circumbinary planet and its stars originate from a single disk.[2]

  1. ^ Holman, Matthew J.; Wiegert, Paul A. (1999). "Long-Term Stability of Planets in Binary Systems". The Astronomical Journal. 117 (1): 621–628. arXiv:astro-ph/9809315. Bibcode:1999AJ....117..621H. doi:10.1086/300695. S2CID 291029. Planets have been detected about 55ρ1 Cancri, τ Bootis, and 16 Cygni B, all of which have companion stars.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference WelshOroszCarterFabrycky was invoked but never defined (see the help page).