Explanation:
Triple star system GW Orionis appears to demonstrate
that planets can form and orbit in multiple planes.
In contrast, all the planets and moons in
our Solar System orbit in nearly the
same plane.
The picturesque system
has three prominent stars, a warped disk, and inner tilted rings of gas and grit.
The featured animation
characterizes the
GW Ori system from observations
with the
European Southern Observatory's
VLT
and
ALMA telescopes in
Chile.
The first part
of the illustrative video shows a grand vista of the entire system from a distant
orbit,
while the
second sequence
takes you inside the
tilted
rings to resolve the three central
co-orbiting stars.
Computer
simulations indicate that multiple stars in systems like GW Ori could
warp and break-up disks into unaligned,
exoplanet-forming rings.
