Upsilon Andromedae made history recently with the discovery that the star parented not just one planet, but three. It was the first multiplanet solar system to be discovered around a sun-like star. Weighing in at 4 Jupiter masses is upsilon Andromedae d, the outermost known planet in this new solar system. At an average distance of 2.5 AUs, this world is has a larger orbit than Mars. The planet would likely have total cloud cover and look quite similar to Jupiter. It’s moons could be quite massive and would be mostly rocky worlds with large amounts of ice. Some of these moons may have vast tracks of their icy surfaces melted and featureless. Recent studies indicate that stars with epistellar planets, like upsilon Andromedae b, might emit superflares every century or so. If this is happening within the upsilon Andromedae system, then great areas of the icy moons of the outermost planet may have been melted smooth by these titanic stellar eruptions. Imagine floating above the main cloud deck of water ice clouds at the equator of upsilon Andromedae d. On the horizon, the sun is setting. Bisecting our view, we see the rings of the third planet as a thin line, glowing in the waning light. The shadow of the rings paints a dark swath on the cloud tops below. Within the rings, small shepherd moons glow like tiny diamonds. The planet’s larger more distant moons can be seen arrayed in line with the rings. In the distance, two bright stars defy the light of the setting sun. These are the first and second planets of upsilon Andromedae.
View a VRML model of the system. Please be patient while the file downloads. For a VRML tour of our galaxy's exoplanets, check out Extrasolar VR.
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