Scientists May Have Discovered 27 Star Wars-Like Planets With Two Suns
Stellar eclipses may hold the key to finding new hidden worlds in binary star systems.
3 min read
There's an iconic scene in the original Star Wars where Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker watches a double sunset above Tatooine, the desert planet where he was raised. Planets with two suns are called circumbinary planets, and the fictional Tatooine is the most famous of these worlds.
Circumbinary planets also exist in reality, although they're rare. To date, scientists have confirmed the existence of only 18 circumbinary planets amid the roughly 6,000 planets that have been tallied outside of our solar system.
A new paper from a team of astronomers led by the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, reveals a method for finding the elusive two-sun planets. Using this process, the astronomers say they've already identified 27 potential circumbinary planet candidates.
"It's important to be clear that these are all candidates,...
Copyright of this story solely belongs to cnet.com. To see the full text click HERE
