The remarkable discovery hints that the solar system has remained undisturbed since it was formed more than four billion years ago.
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00:00 [Music]
00:20 So an orbital resonance is when two objects orbiting around something else
00:25 have orbital periods that are a simple ratio of each other.
00:29 So, for example, if one object goes around in one year
00:34 and another object goes around in two years, then that is a two-to-one resonance.
00:39 [Music]
00:49 The reason why this planetary system is therefore interesting
00:53 is that actually many planetary systems don't have these orbital resonances
00:57 despite the fact that they are somewhat stable.
01:00 And that's because we think that over time, as planets are evolving
01:04 and the solar system is changing, they get knocked out.
01:07 Not literally whacking into one another, but getting slightly pushed away.
01:11 And so we end up with a number of planetary systems out there
01:15 which are close to being an orbital resonance,
01:18 but few that are actually in these resonances.
01:22 [Music]