Planet Kepler ( amazing )

Astronomers have found a Saturn sized planet circling two suns! There is an article about it in the newspaper that was selling on the 16th of September so read all about it if you can get your hands on one. If you can't, were going to post it on our blog anyway.


Here come the suns - astronomers find saturn-size planet

Nicky Phillips

Science


On the fabled star wars planet Tatoonie, Luke Skywalker could watch two suns set on the horison. Today, astronomers report the first direct evidence of a planet revolving around two stars, proving the phenomenon is not just science fiction. 
The planet known as Kepler 16b, is about the same size as Saturn, and circles its stars in 229 days.
The two stars, the larger, an orange dwarf and the smaller, a red dwarf, are both smaller and cooler then our sun and orbit each other in 35 days.


A planetary astronomer, Simon O' Toole, said as about half of all stars came in pairs, scientists had a suspicion planets could form around binary stars.


"But this is the first time we've seen it," Dr O' Toole, from the Australian Astronomical Observatory, said.


A binary star system is formed in the same way a single star does, at the center of a big cloud of gas and dust.


"When you have two stars forming close together you have a big cloud of gas and dust and gravity pulls this into a disc of material which orbits both stars," Dr O' Toole said. 


"If there is enough gas and dust left over you can get a planet."
For the three celestial bodies to form a stable system, and not collapse into each other, they have to be orbiting the stars at the right distance from each other.


A planet needed to be orbiting the stars at a distance four times greater than the separation between the two stars to be stable, he said.


The discovery of the circumbinary planet was made by a large group of international researchers, led by the SETI Institute astrophysicist, Laurance Doyle, using NASA's Kepler space telescope.


The telescope monitors the brightness of more than 150,000 stars within the northern hemisphere constellations Cygnus and Lyra.
The findings are published in the journal Science.


Remember, this is not our words, only a fantastic article from The Sydney Morning Herald written by Nicky Phillips, who writes science articles.


Shiri and Tanna.