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Reported in The Astronomical Journal (DOI: 10.3847/0004-6256/151/2/45), KELT-4Ab orbits one of the stars in a triple stellar system. Considered a "hot Jupiter" because of its large size and small orbit, it is only the fourth planet that has been found in association with a triple star system. KELT-4A is the brightest star in the system. KELT-4B and KELT-4C, separated from each other by about 10 astronomical units (AU), form a binary, about 328 AU distant from KELT-4A. The system is about 685 light-years from us.
The planet was detected in a survey by the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope. Scientific American has a story about the discovery.
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Three-Starred System Has Giant Planet
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This is the first age that's paid much attention to the future, which is a
little ironic since we may not have one.
-- Arthur Clarke
(Score: 2) by AnonymousCowardNoMore on Friday April 08 2016, @04:00AM
The three body problem applies if we consider long time periods, making the system chaotic.
It really depends where the planet/star orbits. Over a time period of several Lyapunov times, its orbit will probably be highly unstable regardless of the original orbit. But such chaotic behaviour normally starts with a body in a metastable orbit, where it stays for a number of Lyapunov times before briefly entering an unstable orbit which flings it into a star (unlikely), out of the system (likely) or (also unlikely but possible) into another metastable orbit, where it stays again for a long time. The sort of near-far dance in the book I can't see happening in a real system, especially over time periods that are short on the scale of civilisations.