Scientists have discovered a pack of planets - six to be exact - in HD 110067 located in Coma Berenices constellation, about 100 light years away from Earth. The constellation is still part of our Milky Way Galaxy. The constellation is brighter than others found in the galaxy. According to a Washington Post report, which is based on the study published in journal Nature, it is 10,000 time brighter than Trappist-1, a red-dwarf star. The new paper has been written by 150 scientists from 12 countries.
Scientists said that these planets were formed at least four billion years ago and remarkably, have been unchanged since then. These six planets are orbiting a Sun-like star.
The discovery was part of scientists' mission to find a habitable planet like Earth (often dubbed as Earth 2.0). But planets in this six-pack are hot, gassy and not pleasant places to visit, said the study.
The discovery made the news because of the unusual nature of the planets, which are locked into a resonance with one another. The study said that one planet make three orbits, while an adjacent one makes two.
"These resonant chains are very rare in nature," lead author Rafael Luque of the University of Chicago told reporters about the discovery, as per the Post report.
The planets are the sizes of Earth and Neptune, a class known as "sub-Neptunes".
The scientists used the spacecraft of American space agency NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). The stable orbital pattern of these planets is because of the fact that they have been free of any major disturbance, such as a catastrophic impact, or the close passage of another star.
Since their birth, these six planets found their orbits relatively quickly and nothing exciting happened to change that.
