2023-06-14 19:00:36
A team of astronomers has discovered the second planet with twin suns, as well as Tatooine, the fictional planet of Luke Skywalker from the franchise Star Wars. The discovery, led by scientists at the University of Birmingham, was published in the magazine Nature Astronomyon Monday the 12th.
The team detected a multiplanet circumbinary system. It was named Bebop-1 (or TOI-1338), after the planet Bebop-1c. These systems have planets that orbit around two stars at the center, instead of just one, as in the Solar System. Circumbinary planets orbit both stars at the same time.
Read too: “Astronomers find ‘Tatooine,’ from Star Wars“
How did researchers discover the planet similar to that of Star Wars
In 2020, researchers found a circumbinary planet, called TOI-1338b, in the Bebop-1 system. This occurred through NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) space telescope. This star was noticed because it passed in front of the brighter of the two stars several times.
The authors of the new study attempted to measure the mass of TOI-1338b, with state-of-the-art instruments installed on two telescopes in Chile’s Atacama Desert. Even if they weren’t successful, they found Bebop-1c.
Planet Bebop-1c has an orbital period of 215 days and a mass 65 times that of Earth. Although its mass remains unknown, the team has set limits that may allow it to be calculated in the future.
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