WHILE Luke Skywalker peered at the two suns of his desert planet pondering his future as a Jedi, scientists peered back into the night sky wondering if such a planet could exist in the known universe and not just in a galaxy far far away.<\/p>\n
Scientists have just confirmed that they've found such a planet and it's called Kepler-16b.<\/p>\n
3<\/p>\n
The exoplanet was spotted by a ground-based telescope located at an observatory in southeast France. <\/p>\n
Professor Amaury Triaud, who led the team that found Kepler-16b, said: It is difficult to understand how circumbinary planets can exist. <\/p>\n
\"Thats because the presence of two stars interferes with the protoplanetary disc, and this prevents dust from agglomerating into planets.<\/p>\n
Triaud theorized: The planet may have formed far from the two stars, where their influence is weaker, and then moved inwards in a process called disc-driven migration or, alternatively, we may find we need to revise our understanding of the process of planetary accretion.<\/p>\n
that do push up against the traditional understanding of planet formation.<\/p>\n
In 2019, a high school-aged intern named Wolf Cukier flagged what he thought was an eclipse. <\/p>\n
Upon further investigation from his peers working on NASAs Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), it turned out to be the first plant orbiting two stars discovered by the TESS program.<\/p>\n
TESS would later discover a planet orbiting three suns in an extremely rare triple-star system.<\/p>\n
Exoplanets, planets outside Earths solar system, existed only in theory starting in 1917. <\/p>\n
The theory was confirmed in 1992 when astronomers Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail discovered two planets 2,300 lightyears away. <\/p>\n
Exoplanet.eu, a running catalog of all confirmed exoplanet discoveries, has nearly 5,000 entries to date.<\/p>\n
The two planets Wolszczan and Frail discovered orbit a pulsarthe core of a collapsed star much larger than the Sun that supports the Milky Way. <\/p>\n
Three years later, the first exoplanet orbiting a Sun comparable to ours was discovered. <\/p>\n
The planet, Pegasi 51 b, experiences temperatures in excess of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit due to its proximity to its star.<\/p>\n
3<\/p>\n
3<\/p>\n
In other news, a huge explosion on the Sun could have been 'catastrophic' for Earth's power grid, experts have warned.<\/p>\n
Elon Musk has long been vocal about his ambitions for colonizing Mars here's everything we know about his plan.<\/p>\n
And, astronomers have observed ared giant star dyingin real-time for the first time ever.<\/p>\n
We pay for your stories!<\/p>\n
Do you have a story for The US Sun team?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
View post: WHILE Luke Skywalker peered at the two suns of his desert planet pondering his future as a Jedi, scientists peered back into the night sky wondering if such a planet could exist in the known universe and not just in a galaxy far far away. Scientists have just confirmed that they've found such a planet and it's called Kepler-16b. 3 The exoplanet was spotted by a ground-based telescope located at an observatory in southeast France Continue reading
\nStar Wars exoplanet that gets TWO sunsets a day spotted by astronomers... - The Sun<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"