Posted 09.15.2011 at 1:00 pm
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Kepler-16b orbiting its two suns
NASA/JPL-Caltech
A mournful French horn blows. An angsty Luke Skywalker stomps out of his aunt and uncle's sand hut and peers up at Tatooine's double sunset, his hair blowing in the breeze. It's a memorable scene from Star Wars—but now, a precedent for such a sky with two suns has been found in our universe.
Using data from the Kepler space observatory, scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and SETI have discovered for the first time a planet orbiting a binary star system, passing in front of both its parent stars along its orbit.
The planet, Kepler-16b, resembles Saturn in its mass and gaseous makeup. That mostly rules out the possibility of any living beings being present to enjoy the double sunset view, although chances are good Kepler-16b has an icy, non-gaseous satellite or two, as Saturn does.
The two stars in the system are 20% and 69% as massive as our sun, respectively. The planet orbits at a distance analogous to Venus's orbit in our solar system, which typically would place it within the "habitable zone" of planets that could support life. But since the combined mass of the two stars is still less than our sun, Kepler-16b's Venus-like orbit is most likely a cold one.
An animation of Kepler-16b's orbit:
Binary star systems, first cataloged at length by English astronomer William Herschel in the early 19th century, are key to our understanding of distant stars, since it's easy to derive each star's mass by studying their linked orbit (the two stars in a binary system both orbit around their shared center of mass). But whether or not such systems, which by some estimates account for about half of the stars in the known universe, could form and support orbiting planets has been a contentious topic--making today's finding significant not just for Star Wars fans.
"It's been pretty much a split vote amongst the theorists," said Alan Boss, a theoretical astrophysicist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, and a co-author of the Kepler 16-b paper. "Some say 'Yeah, we think it's possible to make a Saturn-mass object [in a binary star system].' Other papers say 'Well, no, we don't think it's going to work at all, because those changing gravitational forces from that central binary are going to screw up the process of trying to get little bodies to run into each other and grow bigger and bigger.'"
"One of the exciting things about this is: Kepler, as usual, has answered the question for us," said Boss.
The Kepler observatory's mission is to find and analyze potential Earth-like exoplanets throughout the universe. Today's discovery now significantly expands the working set of stars that could potentially harbor orbiting planets. That means more work for Kepler as it continues what has so far been an extremely successful mission.
The paper, authored primarily by Laurence Doyle of the SETI institute, appears in the journal Science today.
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Is there any chance that the second star is just a very big planet which just migrated too close to the star, getting heated to star-like temperatures?
@dquad
No, I am pretty sure that planets - being the collections of debris from exploded stars - cannot be heated to the levels where fusion can occur as in a star, though I am no expert and that is just reflective of my own understanding.
Ya just gotta love the Kepler space observatory; this is very cool discovery!
I'm wondering if the moons(if they exist around the gas planet) would be habitable. what a strange sky the view would be on this possible moon. two suns and a gas planet. and maybe another moon or two.
After 2000, I remember reading on exoplanet discoveries and how there were two things common about them: the planets were found in binary star systems, and most of the planets found were gas giants.
To date, the discovery of monostar star systems with single or multiple planet make up, have possibly surpassed the number of binary systems that people have either forgotten or maybe the people working through the Kepler Observatory are the first to witness such things.
This isn't the first double star star system discovered, especially with a jovian planet. just the first for these researchers maybe. It would be news to discover an earthlike world around a binary star system in the goldilocks zone.
Still exciting news though. The universe is getting larger and smaller at the same time.
@boka
I think the moon would have to always be on the sunny side to support much life. Too much variation in temperatures and such could really cause issues (possibly).
That said, like most things out there, we really have no clue, it is speculation and educated guesses at best. We don't truly understand life, and every few years find something that shows life to be more durable and exotic than before. So I think the universe is teaming with life of various kinds.
@dquad
A smaller mass could be ignited by something causing a pressure flux (such as a super nova), once this passes, the mass would likely be far less than it started as the explosiveness would exceed the pressure at least in some directions. A star maintains this because it's gravity maintains a solid pressure in all directions that exceeds that of its attempt to explode. So the result is any planet that achieved ignition would likely be blown apart by the process.
Keep in mind this assumes we know as much as we think about the universe, which is still a big mystery in many ways.
Also keep in mind the universe is not exactly digital. Pluto is a great example, we redefined planet and it got booted out of the club. Our planetary core is a pretty hot place and violent one. A larger planet may have a few explosions that could cause pockets of pressure causing limited fusion, but unable to sustain them. There are many astral bodies that fall along this analog scale of planets and stars.
What about that scene from Pitch Black? The one right before it goes.... pitch black.
@pheonix1012
This planet actually does orbit within its star's Goldilocks Zone. I can't help but laugh every time I use that term...
Oh, and for a free database of all the confirmed exoplanets so far, follow this link:
itunes.apple.com/us/app/exoplanet/id327702034?mt=8
Sorry, it's not on android.
This app also has the milky way galaxy and all it's stars, information on each of the planets found, such as mass, orbit eccentricity, it has filters to show only planets with certain attributes, e.g. multieplanetary systems, it has customizable graphs, AND it has information on whether the planet is in the Goldilocks Zone!
In short, it's the best app I've ever downloaded.
-Spouting a fountain of nonsense since 1995-
As we study the variations on earth and life, so goes the heavens above. Seems all things are possible. I really hope life exist on that planet with 2 stars. Its all so cool!
@Lord Elliot the...
I know it's in the Goldilocks zone. It's just not Earthlike. Although it is Saturn like, and that alone is pretty awesome.
Thanks for the link. I'm about to check it out. This sorta stuff makes me want to get heavier into planetary science.
@Lord Elliot the...
I take that back. It's similar to Saturn's mass. Doesn't say whether or not it has rings or not.
"But Uncle Owen, I was going to Tosche Station for some Power Converters"
Not sure how noone else made that comment...
As far as moons around gas giants sustaning life, it is possible, Jupiter actually gives off more heat than it absorbs from the sun, so it would just take the right amount of heat to make it possible. Light is not a requirement of life, as we know it at least. So long as water is liquid life can exist. That's pretty much the only "baseline" needed. For Earth-like life, liquid water = life. So if a moon orbited a gas giant that gives off enough heat to keep that water liquid, then life can be supported. And again, that's just "earth like" life forms. Imagine if we actually started thinking outside the box on "life".
Playing Devil's Advocate since 1978
"The only constant in the universe is change"
-Heraclitus of Ephesus 535 BC - 475 BC
I wonder if the aliens on this planet can tan both sides of their bunns at the same time with 2 suns?
toast that is! ;)
@Tamiko rofl
lol yes. i wanna go some day.
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@dquad
I'm pretty sure the smaller sun is a red dwarf.
@tamiko lmfao. :D
*edit
that would also explain the wobble effect of the bigger sun, because the red dwarf is extremely denser then the sun next to it, its gravitational pull is a lot more intense.
its smaller because as a red giant *(the stage in a sun's life before the red dwarf), it's at the great'est size it will ever be, which if our sun were to go red giant right now it would engulf all of the 4 inner planets. (freaking huge lol)
Then it begin's condensing rapidly to roughly 1/10th the size, so this HUGE sun, (hence the name red giant) takes all of its size an mass and pretty much stuffs it into a super small package, considering its pre-formidable size.
thus the wobbling effect.
AWESOME!!!
Star wars!!!!!
i keep wondering, why dont we go to one of our moon or mars to obtain golds and bring it back to earth, surely will help with the economy. have anyone thought of that?