Dr. Maciej Konacki (MATCH-ee Konn-ATZ-kee) (born 1972 in

Toruń Toruń is a city on the Vistula River in north-central Poland and a World Heritage Sites of Poland, UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its population was 196,935 as of December 2021. Previously, it was the capital of the Toruń Voivodeship (1975–199 ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

) is a Polish

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

, notable for his tentative discovery of HD 188753 Ab, a possible

planet A planet is a large, Hydrostatic equilibrium, rounded Astronomical object, astronomical body that is generally required to be in orbit around a star, stellar remnant, or brown dwarf, and is not one itself. The Solar System has eight planets b ...

discovered in a

three 3 (three) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4, and is the smallest odd prime number and the only prime preceding a square number. It has religious and cultural significance in many societies ...

star system A star system or stellar system is a small number of stars that orbit each other, bound by gravity, gravitational attraction. It may sometimes be used to refer to a single star. A large group of stars bound by gravitation is generally calle ...

. The planet would be similar to

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

.Ministerstwo Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyzszego (Department of Science and Higher Learning), "Polski astronom odkrył planetę o trzech słońcach" (Polish astronomer discovers a planet with three suns",

Education

Konacki received a

Master of Science A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medici ...

degree in

astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...

in 1996 and a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in astronomy in 2000, all at

Nicolaus Copernicus University Nicolaus is a masculine given name. It is a Latin, Greek and German form of Nicholas. Nicolaus may refer to: In science: * Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish astronomer who provided the first modern formulation of a heliocentric theory of the Solar Sys ...

Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center, Polish Academy of Sciences
/ref>

Possible discovery of HD 188753 Ab

Dr. Konacki tentatively discovered HD 188753 Ab with the

Keck I The W. M. Keck Observatory is an astronomical observatory with two telescopes at an elevation of 4,145 meters (13,600 ft) near the summit of Mauna Kea in the U.S. state of Hawaii. Both telescopes have aperture primary mirrors, and, when c ...

telescope on top of

Mauna Kea Mauna Kea (, ; abbreviation for ''Mauna a Wākea''); is a dormant Shield volcano, shield volcano on the Hawaii (island), island of Hawaii. Its peak is above sea level, making it the List of U.S. states by elevation, highest point in Hawaii a ...

mountain in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

.Physicsworld.com, A website of the

Institute of Physics The Institute of Physics (IOP) is a UK-based not-for-profit learned society and professional body that works to advance physics education, physics research, research and applied physics, application. It was founded in 1874 and has a worldwide ...

, "New exoplanet defies theory", Jul 13, 2005

/ref> The discovery was reported in the journal '' Nature (journal), Nature'' in July 2005.Nature 436, 230-233 (14 July 2005)
/ref> A previously discovered planet around a triple star system,

16 Cygni Bb 16 Cygni Bb or HD 186427 b is an extrasolar planet approximately away in the constellation of Cygnus. The planet was discovered orbiting the Sun-like star 16 Cygni B, one of two solar-mass () components of the triple star system 16 Cygni in ...

, orbits a wide system, while HD 188753 Ab, if it exists, orbits a system where the stars in the system are very close to each other. Two years later, Eggenberger et al. stated that they had made observations with the necessary precision to detect the planet, but did not detect it.No evidence of a hot Jupiter around HD 188753 A
/ref>

References

1972 births Living people 20th-century Polish astronomers Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń alumni People from Toruń {{Europe-astronomer-stub

Education

Possible discovery of HD 188753 Ab

See also

References