If Luke Skywalker's home planet Tatooine was real it would have formed in a much different region of space than is depicted in the "Star Wars" movies, migrating to its location later on.
Like Tatooine, Kepler-34(AB)b is considered a circumbinary planet because it orbits two stars, a University of Bristol news release reported.
It is extremely difficult for planets to form in binary star system; the pull of gravity from the two objects can cause "destructive collisions" that wear down the rocky building blocks of planets.
Researchers used computer simulations to see how a planet could form under such treacherous circumstances. The model looked at "the effect of gravity and physical collisions on and between one million planetary building blocks," the news release reported.
The model showed these planets would have formed far away from the twin stars, and then migrated closer.
"Our simulations show that the circumbinary disk is a hostile environment even for large, gravitationally strong objects. Taking into account data on collisions as well as the physical growth rate of planets, we found that Kepler 34(AB)b would have struggled to grow where we find it now," Doctor Zoe Leinhardt of Bristol's School of Physics said in the news release.
The team believes this research suggests all circumbinary planets migrated from a far off location to their current orbit except for a planet called Kepler-47 (AB)c; this planet which is farther away from its host binary stars than any other known circumbinary planet.
"Circumbinary planets have captured the imagination of many science-fiction writers and film-makers -- our research shows just how remarkable such planets are. Understanding more about where they form will assist future exoplanet discovery missions in the hunt for Earth-like planets in binary star systems," Stefan Lines, lead author of the study, said in the news release.
