Astronomers discovered 27 new potential planets orbiting two stars, exactly as in the desert planet Tatooine, from the Star Wars universe. The announcement was made on Monday, May 4, also known as “Star Wars Day” by fans of the saga.
To date, only 18 circumbinary planets – orbiting two stars – have been officially identified in the Universe. In contrast, more than six thousand planets have already been discovered in orbit around solitary stars, exactly like Earth and the Sun.
The new potential planets are at distances ranging from 650 to 18,000 light-years from Earth.
“In astronomy, many things are not very tangible,” said in an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian, Ben Montet, from the University of New South Wales, the lead author of the study. “But thanks to the famous sunset scene in Tatooine in the first Star Wars film, ‘everyone has an idea of what a circumbinary planet is and what it would be like to be on a planet with two suns.’”
According to scientists, more than half of the stars in the Universe exist in a binary system or even in a system with a greater number of stars. Scientists identified planets orbiting binary systems by observing their transits; that is, when they pass in front of the stars.
“When that happens,” explains Montet, “it casts a shadow on the surface of the star and we see a deepening of the star’s brightness… then we can infer that there is something else around it.”
But this only happens when the planet and its star are perfectly aligned with the Earth.
“Potentially, we are missing many systems,” stated the scientist. “It’s hard to find new planets; it’s like trying to find a candle beside a streetlight.”
This time, the researchers used another method for detecting planets that looks for the oscillation in the brightness of stars that eclipse each other.
“If we are able to monitor the exact moment of these eclipses, they show that something is happening in that system,” explained Margo Thornton, co-author of the study.
After ruling out other factors that could cause the same effect, the group identified 36 stellar systems – out of a total of 1,590 whose behavior could only be explained by the presence of a third body.
“For 27 of these objects, it is possible that they are planetary masses,” Thornton said, adding that further studies are needed to confirm the existence of circumbinary planets.
The group discovered the potential planets using data from a NASA program that searches specifically for exoplanets, or planets located outside the Solar System.
Astronomer Sara Webb, from Swinburne University of Technology, who is not involved in the research, praised the detection technique used by the group and noted that it can be used to detect even more planets in the future.
Generally, according to Sara Webb, circumbinary planets tend to have very extreme environments, very different from those found in our Solar System.
“But a planet like Tatooine could, potentially, exist at that exact point between the two stars’ orbits — not too hot, not too cold.”
Sara Webb recalls that when the first Star Wars film was released, scientists did not even know exoplanets existed.
“Many things that were envisioned in art or in artistic concepts of how the Universe should be turned into scientific discoveries,” she said.
