Observed planets in binary star L4 or L5?

Join the discussion
Registration is free. Ask a follow-up in this thread, or start your own.
1 reply · 4K views
cephron
Messages
123
Reaction score
0
It seems to me, from my understanding of the Lagrange points, that a binary system with the appropriate mass ratio between stars could support planets in the L4 and L5 Lagrange points (I've encountered this, actually, in science fiction; Larry Niven put such a planet in the Procyon system for some of his stories).

Provided the two stars follow a near-circular orbit, could such a configuration be stable? Have any exoplanets in this configuration been observed?

Thanks for any info.
 
Last edited:
Astronomy news on Phys.org
From what I've read and been able to figure out is that the stars wouild probably have to have a close to equal gravitational pull on the planets otherwise the orbits of the planets would cross and adn they would collide. It seems as though the orbits would be to unstable to keep planets around for very long.