Post by auntym on Aug 29, 2012 11:46:50 GMT -6
www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/08/29/two-alien-planets-found-with-twin-suns/
Alien planets found with twin suns like Luke Skywalker's homeworld[/color]
By Charles Q. Choi
Published August 29, 2012
Space.com
Alien planets found with twin suns like Luke Skywalker's homeworld
A young Luke Skywalker stares out over the dusty planet Tatooine in this film still from the movie, "Star Wars." (Lucasfilm)
Astronomers have for the first time discovered two alien planets whirling around a pair of stars: a complete solar system with twin suns just like Luke Skywalker's fictional home world Tatooine.
Most stars like our sun are not singletons, but rather come in pairs that orbit each other. Scientists had found planets in these binary systems, so-called circumbinary planets with two suns like Tatooine in the "Star Wars" universe.
To find more circumbinary planets, astronomers analyzed data from NASA's prolific Kepler space telescope, which has detected more than 2,300 potential alien worlds since its March 2009 launch. Kepler had to date detected four systems with circumbinary planets — Kepler-16, 34, 35 and 38.
The scientists have now announced the detection of Kepler-47, the first system seen with multiple worlds encircling a pair of stars. The star and its planets, called Kepler-47b and Kepler-47c, dwell about 5,000 light-years away, in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan. [Planets of the Tatooine-like Solar System (Gallery)]
"Kepler-47 shows us that binary stars can have close-in planetary systems, just like the ones we see in single stars," study lead author Jerome Orosz at San Diego State University told SPACE.com. "Most of the stars in the galaxy are in binary or higher-order multiple systems, so the fact that planetary systems can exist in these types of systems is important. If we were restricted to looking for planets around single stars, we would be missing most of the stars in the galaxy."
CONTINUE READING: www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/08/29/two-alien-planets-found-with-twin-suns/#ixzz24xTE2eWE
Alien planets found with twin suns like Luke Skywalker's homeworld[/color]
By Charles Q. Choi
Published August 29, 2012
Space.com
Alien planets found with twin suns like Luke Skywalker's homeworld
A young Luke Skywalker stares out over the dusty planet Tatooine in this film still from the movie, "Star Wars." (Lucasfilm)
Astronomers have for the first time discovered two alien planets whirling around a pair of stars: a complete solar system with twin suns just like Luke Skywalker's fictional home world Tatooine.
Most stars like our sun are not singletons, but rather come in pairs that orbit each other. Scientists had found planets in these binary systems, so-called circumbinary planets with two suns like Tatooine in the "Star Wars" universe.
To find more circumbinary planets, astronomers analyzed data from NASA's prolific Kepler space telescope, which has detected more than 2,300 potential alien worlds since its March 2009 launch. Kepler had to date detected four systems with circumbinary planets — Kepler-16, 34, 35 and 38.
The scientists have now announced the detection of Kepler-47, the first system seen with multiple worlds encircling a pair of stars. The star and its planets, called Kepler-47b and Kepler-47c, dwell about 5,000 light-years away, in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan. [Planets of the Tatooine-like Solar System (Gallery)]
"Kepler-47 shows us that binary stars can have close-in planetary systems, just like the ones we see in single stars," study lead author Jerome Orosz at San Diego State University told SPACE.com. "Most of the stars in the galaxy are in binary or higher-order multiple systems, so the fact that planetary systems can exist in these types of systems is important. If we were restricted to looking for planets around single stars, we would be missing most of the stars in the galaxy."
CONTINUE READING: www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/08/29/two-alien-planets-found-with-twin-suns/#ixzz24xTE2eWE