Welcome To Kepler-16b, A ‘Tatooine-Like’ Planet That Orbits Two Suns Newly Spotted From Earth
Kepler-16b orbits it’s two stars. NASA’s Kepler Mission discovered the world orbiting two Stars, the … [+]
NASA via Getty Images
A Saturn-sized alien planet that orbits around two stars at once has been detected by astronomers using a ground-based telescope in France.
Kepler-16b, which is 245 light-years from the solar system, was originally discovered by NASA’s now dead Kepler Space Telescope and has not been seen since.
Now astronomers using the Observatoire de Haute-Provence in southeast France have made ground-based observations of Kepler-16b, which orbits around two stars. They used a 193 cm telescope and today published their results, as part of the BEBOP survey, in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
It’s hoped that the new methods pioneered could lead to many more exoplanets in binary star systems being detected without having to use expensive space telescopes to do so.
Being in a binary star system would mean if you could stand on the surface of Kepler-16b you would see two suns in the sky, recalling the famous scene from Star Wars when the hero Luke Skywalker watches a double sunset from his home on Tatooine.
Kepler-16b orbits it’s two stars. NASA’s Kepler Mission discoverd the world orbiting two Stars, the … [+]
NASA via Getty Images
Just like Tatooine in Star Wars, planets have been found in binary stars systems, some of which even orbit both stars. Of the 2,662 exoplanets found by the Kepler Space Telescope during its mission, only 12 orbit a close pair of stars, but such star systems are thought to be in the majority.
Exoplanets are planets that orbit around stars other than our Sun and mostly too far away to be directly imaged. Instead, they’re found using data that infers their existence, mostly by observing the effect of orbiting planets on the host star—such as a slight dimming in starlight as a planet transits across it (the transit method), or the tiny gravitational effect of a planet on the “wobble” of a star (the radial velocity method).
While the Kepler Space Telescope originally found Kepler-16b using the transit method while these astronomers found it independently using the radial velocity method.
This illustration made available by NASA shows the Kepler Space Telescope. (NASA via AP)
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“Kepler-16b was first discovered 10 years ago by NASA’s Kepler satellite using the transit method. This system was the most unexpected discovery made by Kepler. We chose to turn our telescope and recover Kepler-16 to demonstrate the validity of our radial-velocity methods,” said Dr Alexandre Santerne, from the University of Marseille, a collaborator on the research.
It’s hoped that the astronomers’ detection of Kepler-16b will make it easier to discover more so-called circumbinary planets.
“Our discovery shows how ground-based telescopes remain entirely relevant to modern exoplanet research and can be used for exciting new projects,” said Dr Isabelle Boisse from the University of Marseille. “Having shown we can detect Kepler-16b, we will now analyse data taken on many other binary star systems, and search for new circumbinary planets.”
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
