Scientists Find More Planets Orbiting Two Stars

[n2doc]

By SINDYA N. BHANOO
Published: January 11, 2012

In the “Star Wars” movies, Luke Skywalker’s home planet, Tatooine, orbits two suns, giving it two sunsets and two sunrises every day. In September, scientists discovered the first planet in our galaxy that does orbit two stars; now they have discovered two more and suggest that there are probably millions of these so-called circumbinary planets.


“We found two more, and that immediately tells us wow, this wasn’t a fluke,” said William Welsh, an astronomer at San Diego State University who was involved in the research. “Now that we have three, we can compare the differences and start to learn more about these as a class of planetary systems.”

Dr. Welsh and his colleagues report their discovery of the planets in the current issue of the journal Nature.

The paper describes Kepler 34b and Kepler 35b, both gaseous planets about the size of Saturn; they are 4,900 and 5,400 light years from Earth, respectively.


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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/science/scientists-find-more-planets-orbiting-two-stars.html

[HopeHoops]

1. If I recall correctly, binary systems are much more prevalent than unitary systems like ours.

If suns are likely to have planets, then that would lead to the conclusion that binary systems are just as likely if not more so than unitary systems. I've looked at the physics behind them and it isn't pretty shit - it will keep you up at night rethinking the equations.

[Warpy]

3. Some people consider the earth and moon a binary planetary system

because the relative size is much smaller than the relative sizes of other satellites to their planets.

It seems the universe likes binary. Who knew?

[HopeHoops]

4. Well, I meant stars, but yes that's true - same with Pluto (lesser binary planet system?)

[jakeXT]

2. EXTRAORDINARY EXOPLANETS AAS_Press January 11, 2012 Length: 54:04

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/19701278