Double Planets Found Orbiting Twin Stars

Rain's picture

National Geographic -Luna Shyr in Beijing, 8/29/12

An illustration of a two-planet, two-star solar system.

The newfound star system, Kepler-47, is seen in an artist's illustration.

Illustration courtes T. Pyle, Caltech/NASA

The Kepler Space Telescope has notched another milestone discovery: double planets circling double stars in the constellation Cygnus, some 5,000 light-years away. It's the first time multiple planets have been found in a binary star system.

"It's much more difficult to form planets around a pair of stars," said San Diego State University's William Welsh, who presented the discovery Wednesday at the International Astronomical Union meeting in Beijing.

More: nationalgeographic.com.

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Comments

Interesting...?

toonewewillreturn's picture

Hey MFG/rain, I remember you posted/talked about the new worlds that would be set up in perfected binary star systems with two suns??? This discovery confirms that right!?

Good question!

Rain's picture

I guess we will have to wait to hear from MFG on this one because I don't know. Thanks for commenting!

namaste