Rare "Tatooine-Like" Exoplanet that Orbits Around Two Stars at Once Found by Ground-Based Telescope

posted by janrinok on Wednesday March 02 2022, @10:42PM

Rare "Tatooine-Like" Exoplanet That Orbits Around Two Stars at Once Spotted by Ground-Based Telescope:

A rare exoplanet that orbits around two stars at once has been detected using a ground-based telescope by a team led by the University of Birmingham.
The planet, called Kepler-16b, has so far only been seen using the Kepler space telescope. It orbits around two stars, with the two orbits also orbiting one another, forming a binary star system. Kepler-16b is located some 245 light years from Earth and, like Luke Skywalker's home planet of Tatooine, in the Star Wars universe, it would have two sunsets if you could stand on its surface.
The 193cm telescope used in the new observation is based at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence, in France. The team was able to detect the planet using the radial velocity method, in which astronomers observe a change in the velocity of a star as a planet orbits about it.
The detection of Kepler-16b using the radial velocity method is an important demonstration that it is possible to detect circumbinary planets using more traditional methods, at greater efficiency and lower cost than by using spacecraft.

Importantly the radial velocity method is also more sensitive to additional planets in a system, and it can also measure the mass of a planet – its most fundamental property.
Having demonstrated the method using Kepler-16b, the team plans to continue the search for previously unknown circumbinary planets and help answer questions about how planets are formed. Usually, planets formation is thought to take place within a protoplanetary disc – a mass of dust and gas which surrounds a young star. However, this process may not be possible within a circumbinary system.

Journal Reference:
Amaury H M J Triaud, Matthew R Standing, Neda Heidari, et al. BEBOP III. Observations and an independent mass measurement of Kepler-16 (AB) b – the first circumbinary planet detected with radial velocities, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stab3712)

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