Maybe even you can see this astounding planet, Kepler-1647b, if you strain to watch the constellation Cygnus. It is a newly discovered planet that revolves not one but two stars!
Hence, this one is a Tatooine. Planets that revolve two suns are called "Tatooine." The name has been devised from a fictional satellite in the "Star Wars" films that claim they get to host a "double sunset".
It is as big as Jupiter, and 3,700 light-years from our earth. Each light-year is about 6 trillion miles.
The planet was discovered by a team led by NASA as well as San Diego State University with a Kepler telescope. The new finding was revealed on Monday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in San Diego.
Scientists explain that though it is in a habitable zone, in which the crucial lifeline of water can be in a liquid state, the planet is too big to support life, said scientists.
Kepler-1647b takes about 1,107 days to complete its revolution of its two stars.
"It's a bit curious that this biggest planet took so long to confirm since it is easier to find big planets than small ones," San Diego State astronomer Jerome Orosz said.
NASA launched Kepler in 2009 to seek earth-like planets outside the solar system.
It was in 2011 that experts discovered the first Tatooine, which was a world about as big as Saturn and 200 light-years from Earth.
"Planets with more than one sun have long captivated our collective imagination, yet direct evidence of their existence has emerged only in the past few years," the researchers, led by NASA Goddard postdoctoral fellow Veselin Kostov, presented in their paper. "As important as a new discovery of a (circumbinary planet) is to indulge our basic human curiosity about distant worlds, its main significance is to expand our understanding of the inner workings of planetary systems in the dynamically rich environments of close binary stars."
