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| George Lucas knew it before the scientists.(Image: Lucasfilm) |
NASA’s
Kepler space laboratory has discovered a pair of planets orbiting a pair of
suns. The first-ever find could revolutionize knowledge of how planets are
formed, and even identify alien worlds where life may flourish.
The
Kepler-47 star system, about 5,000 light years away from Earth, has a bright
sun and a pale sun that circle each other, and two planets bigger than the
earth that rotate around their dance.
Greg Laughlin,
professor of astrophysics and planetary science at the University of
California, said the discovery could turn our understanding of how planets
appeared after the Big Bang on its head.
"This
is an amazing discovery," he told SPACE.com "These planets are very
difficult to form using the currently accepted paradigm, and I believe that
theorists will be going back to the drawing board to try to improve our
understanding of how planets are assembled."
A planet
with more than one sun, like Tatooine in Star Wars, was long imagined by
artists, but the first such arrangement, known as a circumbinary system, was
spotted less than twenty years ago.
It was
often assumed before that that a system of multiple planets would struggle to
exist under the gravity of two stars at the same time, with planets either
pulling away from the orbit or crashing into each other.
Now,
scientists are expecting to find more such systems.
“If we get
more data that confirms a third planet, then the sky’s the limit,” says Jerome
Orosz from San Diego State University, who published the discovery of Kepler-47
in Science magazine.
It is even
possible such a planet will be detected in Kepler-47, he says.
The Kepler
space telescope was launched in 2009, with the hope of finding Earth-like
planets in “habitable zones” that could potentially house life. It has found
more than 2,300 potential alien worlds so far.
The new
discovery will make the search easier.
"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," says Orosz.
The planet
closer to the suns circles them every fifty days, and is likely to be searing
hot and unsuitable for life.
But the
further planet is in the “habitable range,” where water could exist. The body
itself is likely a gas giant like Uranus, nonetheless researchers say its moons
could be suitable for life.
And even if
it is not found there, there are billions more circumbinary systems in our
galaxy alone.
"The
thing I find most exciting is the potential for habitability in a circumbinary
system," says Science study co-author William Welsh of San Diego State
University.
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