2025.03.19
The Story of Kepler-221 -- A Broken Chain
Kepler-221 is a G-type star hosting four planets. Among these planets, three of them -- b, c, and e – have their orbits following a rhythm known as a three-body resonance. This means that their orbital periods are close to integer, which resembles synchronized dancers following the same beat. For every six orbits of planet b, planet c completes three, and planet e completes one. But there’s a...