Nasa's Kepler telescope finds planet orbiting two suns

[Fletcher]

NASA has found a planet that orbits not one, but two suns. Apparently its only been a theory about this type of stellar phenomenon, but now. It's confirmed. Fair play, the image looks stunning.

An artist's conception of Kepler-16b

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.

Named Kepler-16b, it is thought to be an uninhabitable cold gas giant, like Saturn.

The newly detected body lies some 200 light years from Earth.

Though there have been hints in the past that planets circling double stars might exist, scientists say this is the first confirmation.
'Stunning'

It means when the day ends on Kepler-16b, there is a double sunset, they say.

Kepler-16b's two suns are smaller than ours - at 69% and 20% of the mass of our sun - making the surface temperature an estimated -100 to -150F (-73 to -101C).

The planet orbits its two suns every 229 days at a distance of 65m miles (104m km) - about the same solar orbit as Venus.

The Kepler telescope, launched in 2009, is designed to scour our section of the Milky Way galaxy for Earth-like planets.

"This is really a stunning measurement by Kepler," said Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution for Science, a co-author of the study.

"The real exciting thing is there's a planet sitting out there orbiting around these two stars."

Kepler finds stars whose light is regularly dimmed, which means there is an orbited planet between the star and the telescope.

Nasa's scientists saw additional dips in the light in both stars at alternating but regular times, confirming the dual orbit of the planet.

The finding was reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

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"Oh chuffing blimey, another day, another person being whiney!"
Fletcher's Feedback and Stories Thread

[Polarkreis]

Interesting

And maybe one day they will find out that THIS:



can also happen :)

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[Fletcher]

The hell is that?

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"Oh chuffing blimey, another day, another person being whiney!"
Fletcher's Feedback and Stories Thread

[Echo 7-7]

Cool news. Thanks for sharing, Fletcher.

@Macko: I somehow doubt that will happen.

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There was a sig here, once.

[Polarkreis]

The hell is that?

Planetary cluster in the Dauphine system... you have never been there?? :blink:

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[Marburg]

Screw reality & all that mess. It's Gaia Dude!

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[Tenacity]

What I always thought would be cool is a habitable planet that either orbits a larger planet (moon) or has a large moon in close orbit. Can you imagine having half of the horizon filled up with a planetary body so close you can practically see land formations with the naked eye? =P

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[Fletcher]

Planetary cluster in the Dauphine system... you have never been there?? :blink:

Nope, never had an RP reason.

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"Oh chuffing blimey, another day, another person being whiney!"
Fletcher's Feedback and Stories Thread

[Toaster]

What I always thought would be cool is a habitable planet that either orbits a larger planet (moon) or has a large moon in close orbit. Can you imagine having half of the horizon filled up with a planetary body so close you can practically see land formations with the naked eye? =P

Or, how about two almost same-sized planets orbiting each other, orbiting a star?

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Olivia Sable
On hiatus

[Domjan]

If it would get close it would cause them to unify creating a huge explosion.