Planet with triple-star system

A team of researchers working at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has announced the finding of a triple-star system—one that also as has a stable orbit planet in it.

• Known planets with three stars appearing in their sky are rare and this new discovery is just the fourth.

Details:

• The objects under study in the new system are KELT-4Ab, a gas giant planet, similar in size to Jupiter—it takes approximately three days to make its way around the star KELT-A, which serves as its sun.
• The other two stars, named KELT-B and C, are much farther away and orbit one another over the course of approximately 30 years.
• Scientists found that the main star was brighter than the other stars that serve as suns for their planets.
• It takes the pair approximately four thousand years to orbit KELT-A.
• The triple-star system offers a unique opportunity for scientists working to try to understand how it is that gas giants, such as KELT-4Ab, manage to orbit so close to their star.

Background:

Space scientists have known of the existence of the KELT system for several years, but it was thought that the binary stars were actually just one star.