New Planet - Planet whose existence is almost impossible to detect the Astronomer NASA recently announced their first discovery of planets orbiting a binary star system. Officially known as the Kepler-16b, the planet has been dubbed "Tatooine" after Luke Skywalker's home planet from the original movie Star Wars. But unlike the fictional planet, this one is not inhabited by life forms known. And it is in our own Milky Way, not some distant galaxy.From the standpoint of the Earth, astronomers observe the Kepler-16b passing in front of the two parent stars - a phenomenon they call "transit." Gravity holds the stars in orbit around each other, and they both circle the planet's orbit.
This discovery is a major success for NASA's Kepler space observatory, which launched in 2009. The observatory contains a photometer, an advanced tool that measures how much light emitting star. This allows astronomers to detect when the star transit to each other and when planets transit their stars.
Announced (so far) one-of-a-kind find, NASA noted that the Kepler-16b may not contain liquid water and is uninhabitable because its orbit is outside the habitable zone of the star system. However, NASA confirmed that the discovery "confirms a new class of planetary systems that could harbor life."
"With these findings we become aware that there are more planets out there than we expected," said Maciej Konacki, an astronomer at Caltech who wrote the research article in Nature. "So far, we find planets just in single stars. Now more choice." Konacki, in his writings, calls this new type of planets as a type planet Tatooine.
The name is taken from a double planet with the Sun, where the Skywalker clan originated in the Star Wars story. The fact that a planet can exist in multiple star system is something amazing. Keep in mind, a double star system (binary) and multi-star system is quite commonly found in our galaxy. The figure was 20 percent more than single star systems.
So far most of the extrasolar planet - outside our solar system - was discovered by observing the characteristic wobble of light, which shows the gravitational pull of another object, which is most likely the planet. The above method is less effectively used to search for planets in binary or multiple star system.
In addition, the theory is that planets are not formed in an environment like this. Therefore Konacki get his Tatooine planets by measuring the speed of objects in multi-star systems. Some suspect it is actually planet-star to four smaller ones. But there is also suspected as the planet's solid core. To find out, astronomers will conduct research to learn more about this mysterious planet.
This discovery is a major success for NASA's Kepler space observatory, which launched in 2009. The observatory contains a photometer, an advanced tool that measures how much light emitting star. This allows astronomers to detect when the star transit to each other and when planets transit their stars.
Announced (so far) one-of-a-kind find, NASA noted that the Kepler-16b may not contain liquid water and is uninhabitable because its orbit is outside the habitable zone of the star system. However, NASA confirmed that the discovery "confirms a new class of planetary systems that could harbor life."
"With these findings we become aware that there are more planets out there than we expected," said Maciej Konacki, an astronomer at Caltech who wrote the research article in Nature. "So far, we find planets just in single stars. Now more choice." Konacki, in his writings, calls this new type of planets as a type planet Tatooine.
The name is taken from a double planet with the Sun, where the Skywalker clan originated in the Star Wars story. The fact that a planet can exist in multiple star system is something amazing. Keep in mind, a double star system (binary) and multi-star system is quite commonly found in our galaxy. The figure was 20 percent more than single star systems.
So far most of the extrasolar planet - outside our solar system - was discovered by observing the characteristic wobble of light, which shows the gravitational pull of another object, which is most likely the planet. The above method is less effectively used to search for planets in binary or multiple star system.
In addition, the theory is that planets are not formed in an environment like this. Therefore Konacki get his Tatooine planets by measuring the speed of objects in multi-star systems. Some suspect it is actually planet-star to four smaller ones. But there is also suspected as the planet's solid core. To find out, astronomers will conduct research to learn more about this mysterious planet.
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