Astronomers Discover A New Exoplanet Orbiting in ‘Habitable Zone’ of Two Stars

If there were life on the planet, however, they would witness a sky much like the one shown on the planet Tatooine in the Star Wars film franchise with two blazing suns which orbit each other every 27 days. Kepler-453b is the tenth example of a planet orbiting a binary star system that Kepler has found.

“It’s awe-inspiring to consider that this planet has spent 6 billion years in the habitable zone of its star; longer than Earth”. Most appear to sport large planets many times the mass of Earth close to their stars, whereas in our solar system the small rocky planets are in the inner regions, while the larger gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn are scattered much further out. The largest sun is about 94 percent the size of our sun, and the smallest is only 20 percent the size of our Sunday. It orbits the two stars every 240 days.

“We did not know circumbinary systems could exist until Kepler came along, and since then we have been finding them in larger numbers”, Kane said.

Exoplanets are planets outside of the solar system and were first discovered in the early 1990’s.

The discovery, which will be announced at the 29th worldwide Astronomical Union General Assembly in Honolulu on August 14, is hailed as an important milestone as it brings the number of circumbinary planets to double digits. Kepler-453b is a gas giant, with a mass estimated to be under 16 times that of the Earth.

That, said Professor Jerome Orosz is a near-perfect representation of what it would look like if you were standing on a planet in a binary star system. In one year, the planet orbits two stars. These planets so far are proving to be more common than previously thought, as scientists suspect more may soon be found. “The detection was a lucky catch for Kepler”, said William Welsh, professor of astronomy at San Diego State University and lead author of the study. Kepler collected three “transits”, when the planet passed in front of one of the stars, but these will not be visible again until 2066.

The search for planets that could support Earth-like life forms is heating up and now a pair of researchers is claiming to have identified a new way to speed up the process. The “habitable zone” is the area around stars in which life could potentially exist.

The ten detected circumbinary exoplanets offer some variety in their configurations while tending to be compact systems overall. “Each new circumbinary planet is a gem, revealing something unexpected and challenging”.

Kepler Mission of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has located a new exoplanet.