Friday, 7 August 2015

exoplanet - What's the name for [the other kind of planet] in a binary star system?

Astronomy currently only gives us the names circumbinary (left picture) and Trojan planet (unpictured, planet is around a Lagrange point), but from circumbinary we can extrapolate other names:



  • circumunary - revolves around one star

  • circumtrinary/circumternary - revolves around a trinary/ternary star system

Technically, there is another term that actually has some use: circumsystem. This is used for objects that revolve around a multiple star system regardless of the number of stars within the system.

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