In Douglas Adams's popular sci-fi series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the wandering characters find their way to a mysterious world named Magrathea that was once at the centre of the custom planet-building industry. In the story, Magrathea is described as an ancient planet orbiting around twin suns in the heart of the Horsehead Nebula. But how common might such planets actually be in our Galaxy?
Gabriele Columba, a PhD student in the department of physics and astronomy at the University of Padua, Italy, and his colleagues have been investigating. The type of planetary system they're interested in is an exoplanet orbiting a binary pair where both partners are white dwarfs - which they dub Magrathea worlds. (Although, here they're considering gas giants rather than the sort of terrestrial planet that features in Hitchhiker's.)
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der July 2023-Ausgabe von BBC Sky at Night Magazine.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der July 2023-Ausgabe von BBC Sky at Night Magazine.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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