Astronomers have published a study revealing that NASA’s exoplanet-hunting Kepler telescope has spotted two planets orbiting two suns for the first time.
The find proves that circumbinary planetary systems can not only form in, but continue to withstand, the intense pressures exerted by a binary star system — until now, astronomers had only been able to identify binary star systems with one planet in orbit, a find that was confirmed in 2011 when Kepler-16b was spotted.
“The presence of a full-fledged circumbinary planetary system orbiting Kepler-47 is an amazing discovery,” commented Greg Laughlin, professor of astrophysics and planetary science at the University of California, in a press release. “These planets are very difficult to form using the currently accepted paradigm, and I believe that theorists, myself included, will be going back to the drawing board to try to improve our understanding of how planets are assembled in dusty circumbinary disks.”
via Wired
