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JoeViturbo t1_ird6sxb wrote

What I'd like to know is, could a double star solar system support orbiting planets and what kind of orbit would they have?

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DisplacedPersons12 t1_irdic1c wrote

i assume (with no real evidence) that at a sufficient distance the centre of mass of the two stars would be consistent enough to sustain an orbiting planet

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Wassux t1_irdy95p wrote

Oh for sure, they are actually more common than single star systems if I remember correctly.

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PantsOnHead88 t1_irecyik wrote

At sufficient distance from the stars, it approaches being a single centre of mass, so it’s certainly possible.

Close orbits would not be long-term stable unless one star is around 2 orders of magnitude more massive than the other, and the planet orbits in the L4 or 5 Lagrange point of the less massive star.

Even in our own system the question is more like “are the orbits stable on a particular time scale?”

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