The newly discovered planet looks like Tatooine from Star Wars

space

Astronomers have discovered an exoplanet that stands out from the crowd. The planet Bebop-1c, with its two suns, resembles the fictional Star Wars planet Tatooine.

Exoplanets, planets orbiting stars other than our sun, are plentiful. Most of them are in orbit, like Earth and the planets in our solar system, around only one star. An international group of astronomers has now found the second planetary system, which contains more than one planet, and which instead of one planet has two suns.

Thus, anyone on the newly discovered planet looking up at the sky would be able to see two suns. Just like the planet Tatooine in the Star Wars movies. The newly discovered planet is called Bebop-1c. Astronomers already knew about another planet in the system, TOI-1338.

Planets that revolve around two stars are called circular planets. The research on the new discovery has been published in natural astronomy.

David Martin of Ohio State University, co-author of the study, said press release.

Another binary star system with more than one planet known to astronomers is Kepler-47. There are as many as three planets, Kepler-47 b, d and c.

Bebop-1c is 65 times heavier than Earth

Bebop-1c is named after the project that collected data that confirmed its existence – companion binaries by orbiting planets. The reason for the different name of the second planet, TOI-1338b, is because it was discovered in another project in 2020 using the Tess Space Telescope.

The newly discovered planet’s orbit period is 215 days and its mass is 65 times that of Earth. So right now, astronomers only know of two planets in the system, but there could be more. Although rare, planetesimals, which orbit a binary star, can teach scientists more about how planets form.

Planets are born in disks of material surrounding young stars, and matter steadily collects in planets. When it comes to circular geometry, the disk surrounds the two stars. As the stars orbit each other, they act like a giant paddle that disrupts the disk near the stars and prevents planet formation, except in the quieter regions farther away from the binary. Determining the location and conditions of planet formation in circular systems is easier than identifying individual stars such as the Sun, Dr. Lalitha Sayram of the University of Birmingham, co-author of the study, said in the press release.