Possible Planetary System
The system was the subject of a dedicated search for transiting extrasolar planets in orbit around the binary from 1994–1999. In the end, the existence of all of the transiting planet candidates suggested by the project was ruled out.
Based on variations in the timing of the system's eclipses, it has been suggested that there may be an object in a circumbinary orbit around the two red dwarf stars. In 2000, it was proposed that a Jovian planet is orbiting the system with a period of 750–1050 days. More recent eclipse measurements suggest there may be a planet with a mass similar to Jupiter in an 18.5-year orbit, or instead a more massive object located further out. The variations are inconsistent with being caused by the white dwarf companion star. No further evidence for the 750–1050 day planet was found and it is considered unlikely that it exists.
| Companion |
Mass | Semimajor axis |
Orbital period |
Eccentricity | Radius |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| b | ≥1.5 MJ | 5.3 | 18.5±4.5 | ? | — |
Read more about this topic: CM Draconis
Famous quotes containing the words planetary and/or system:
“What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen, who has only to imagine in order to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdads of his dreams to rise from the dust.”
—Salvador Dali (19041989)
“Human beings are compelled to live within a lie, but they can be compelled to do so only because they are in fact capable of living in this way. Therefore not only does the system alienate humanity, but at the same time alienated humanity supports this system as its own involuntary masterplan, as a degenerate image of its own degeneration, as a record of peoples own failure as individuals.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)