this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2026
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At least intuitively it seems to me that 8-shaped paths would be extremely unlikely and unstable. Wikipedia describes two types of orbits:
So the planet can orbit both stars elliptically, or just one of them - but the latter can be the case only when the other star is a dwarf that can't affect the planet too much.
I assume that, just like with a circular orbit, it could be theoretically possible to have some crazy figure-8 orbit around two stars, but that orbit would be so unstable you will in practice never find it in the real world.
What I mean is you could probably design some crazy solution to the three-body problem that in principle remains periodic, but which will completely dissolve at even a slight perturbation.