The modeling work hints that two-star systems, long assumed hostile to stable planets, may still host worlds capable of supporting liquid water.

William Jacob propuso la existencia de un planeta gigante alrededor del sistema estelas 70 Ophiuchi.

A nearby star system with two suns could potentially support an Earth-sized planet in a region where liquid water could exist, according to a new paper examining the dynamics of the system.

171 yıllık 70 Ophiuchi gezegen iddiası çürütüldü

Astronomlar, 1855'ten beri 70 Ophiuchi sisteminde bulunduğu düşünülen dev gezegen için yeni bir inceleme yaptı. Sonuçlar, 171 yıllık hipotezi destekleyen yörünge sapmalarının bir gezegenden değil, yıldızın kendi dönüşü ve yüzey aktivitesinden kaynaklandığını gösterdi.

People are fascinated by the idea of a planet orbiting more than one star, like Tatooine in “Star Wars” or Trisolaris in “The Three-Body Problem.” On September 29, 2026, researchers at the University of California, Riverside, said they have modeled a nearby binary star system and found that it could potentially support an Earth-sized planet in a habitable-zone orbit. The researchers used 70 Ophiuchi as their model. This two-star system lies about 16 light-years away. Both of the stars in the 70 Ophiuchi system are a bit smaller and cooler than our sun. And while we’ve yet to find a planet orbiting either star, the UC Riverside astronomers said they’ve found that one could feasibly exist in a stable orbit around one of the two stars. And it could lie within the habitable zone of one of the stars, where liquid water would be stable on its surface. The researchers published their peer-reviewed study on September 29, 2026, in The Astrophysical Journal. Why look at 70 Ophiuchi? The researchers targeted 70 Ophiuchi for their study. It’s a nearby star at around 16 light-years away, and people have been observing it for decades. From a dark-sky site, you can see it...

Astronomers found no Jupiter-sized planets around nearby 70 Ophiuchi, but smaller worlds could still occupy its habitable zones.

When we did that, and William Herschel observed the star during his work on binary stars in the 18th century, we indeed discovered that the star was in fact two, dancing together in orbit. At that time, it hadn't been shown that Newton's laws of gravitation applied beyond the Solar System. Herschel's study of these binary pairs and their minute evolution in their position over time showed that stars close together in the sky are not merely floating their nearby, but often gravitationally bound pairs, which adhered to Newton's theory. But (there's always a but) observations of 70 Ophiuchi had a few anomalies to figure out. When attempting to figure out their orbits around each other in the 1850s, all hypothetical proposals failed to explain the observations of their true positions. At the time it was expected that Newton's laws of gravitation did apply beyond the Solar System, but it wasn't altogether case shut, and 70 Ophiuchi was a bit of a puzzle in this regard. "It is just possible that [the discrepancies between proposed orbits and observation] might arise from an erroneous assumption of the universal application of the law of gravitation," William Jacob explained in an 1855 paper...

New research led by the University of Michigan is helping set the stage for future observatories to characterize rocky planets

Astronomers at the University of Michigan have just delivered the most sensitive modern search yet for giant planets in the nearby binary star system 70 Ophiuchi AB, and their findings are as intriguing as they are frustrating. Despite combing through a century’s worth of data and adding new high-precision observations from telescopes in Chile and Texas, the team found no evidence of Jupiter-sized planets orbiting either star. Instead, they ruled them out. At first glance, the absence of discovery might sound anticlimactic. But in astronomy, ruling something out can be just as important as finding it. The researchers achieved record-setting sensitivity, showing that within the inner regions of the system, up to 5 astronomical units around 70 Oph A and half an astronomical unit around 70 Oph B, there are no planets as massive as Jupiter. That still leaves plenty of room for smaller worlds. Planets the size of Saturn or smaller could exist in the system’s habitable zone, where liquid water might persist on rocky surfaces. Astronomers detect the biggest explosion since the big bang “It’s a mix of disappointment and excitement,” said Yiting Li, postdoctoral researcher at U-M. “We’re finding out that there isn’t a Jupiter-sized planet, but...

No Jupiter-sized planets found around 70 Ophiuchi.

Setting: Planet Veridia-Prime (System Ophiuchi-9) Chronology: Cycle 2170, Post-Fracture Era The soil of Veridia-Prime did not merely grow ...

Setting: Planet Veridia-Prime (System Ophiuchi-9) Chronology: Cycle 2170, Post-Fracture Era The soil of Veridia-Prime did not merely grow ...