PLANET WITH FOUR SUNS

PLANET WITH FOUR SUNS:

Astronomers have found a planet having four different suns - the first known of its type.

The distant world orbits one pair of stars which have a second stellar pair revolving around them.

The discovery was made by volunteers using the Planethunters.org website along with a team from UK and US institutes; follow-up observations were made with the Keck Observatory.

The planet, located just under 5,000 light-years away, has been named PH1 after the Planet Hunters site.

It is thought to be a "gas giant" slightly larger than Neptune - more than six times the radius of the Earth.

STABILITY FACTOR:

"All four stars pulling on it creates a very complicated environment. Yet there it sits in an apparently stable orbit.

Binary stars - systems with pairs of stars - are not uncommon. But only a handful of known exoplanets (planets that circle other stars) have been found to orbit such binaries. And none of these binary systems are known to have another pair of stars circling them.

Dr Lintott said: "There are six other well-established planets around double stars, and they're all pretty close to those stars.