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Posted: Wednesday, October 17th, 2012 8:51 AM HST

Mauna Kea telescopes confirm discovery of planet with 4 stars

By Ken Hupp - 67AM KPUA News

Big Island based telescopes have confirmed the discovery of a far-off planet that receives light from four stars. The Neptune-sized gas giant, named PH1, is the first confirmed exoplanet to be discovered by Planethunters.org, a collaboration of amateurs working with astronomers from Yale University. The Yale team used the Keck telescopes at the summit of Mauna Kea to confirm the discovery and found that PH1 orbits one pair of stars, which are orbited by another pair of stars, at a distance nearly 1,000 times that between the Earth and the sun. Yale postdoctoral researcher Meg Schwamb presented the discovery Monday at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences in Reno, Nevada.