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Tatooine? Planet with double sunset found

Cork boy 55 · 2011-09-16 15:01:10

Interesting find. link to BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14940885 Link to orginal report in science journal with PDF download http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6049/1602

16-09-2011 3:01pm

#1

Cork boy 55

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Interesting find.

A planet orbiting two suns - the first confirmed alien world of its kind - has been found by Nasa's Kepler telescope, the US space agency announced.

It may resemble the planet Tatooine from the film Star Wars, but scientists say Luke Skywalker, or anyone at all, is unlikely to be living there.

The newly detected body lies some 200 light years from Earth

link to BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14940885

Link to orginal report in science journal with PDF download

We report the detection of a planet whose orbit surrounds a pair of low-mass stars. Data from the Kepler spacecraft reveal transits of the planet across both stars, in addition to the mutual eclipses of the stars, giving precise constraints on the absolute dimensions of all three bodies. The planet is comparable to Saturn in mass and size and is on a nearly circular 229-day orbit around its two parent stars. The eclipsing stars are 20 and 69% as massive as the Sun and have an eccentric 41-day orbit. The motions of all three bodies are confined to within 0.5° of a single plane, suggesting that the planet formed within a circumbinary disk.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6049/1602

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Comments

#2 16-09-2011 3:12pm

IamtheWalrus

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What I don't get is why doesn't the 'middle' sun not distort the planet's orbit? Is it because the middle sun is very small so that it's gravitational pull is very weak?

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#3 16-09-2011 8:25pm

slade_x

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Already posted in the other thread on extrasolar planets:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056388756

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#4 16-09-2011 9:24pm

irishh_bob

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genuine question but are thier telescopes which can see a distance of two hundred light years away which afaik is a lot further away than tipperary

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#5 16-09-2011 9:27pm

Wertz

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Strange, just the other night I was messing about trying to create a binary system with one orbiting planet in that gravity simulation thing that someone posted in one of the threads below.
I could manage a stable system with two stars of equal mass and the right orbit speed for the planet but changing the masses of either star would move the centre of gravity and the bigger of the two suns would always slingshot or capture the planet after running the orbit for a while.

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