Circumbinary Planets: How Tatooine Could Have Formed
Friday, January 31, 2014 - 14:40
in Astronomy & Space
The linchpin location of the "Star Wars" franchise was the planet Tatooine, home to both Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. It, along with its twin suns, appeared in every movie of the franchise except "The Empire Strikes Back" How would such a planet, orbiting two stars, form? There are few environments more extreme than a binary star system in which planet formation can occur. Kepler-34(AB)b has some answers, according to a new study. Like Tatooine, Kepler-34(AB)b is a circumbinary planet, its orbit encompasses two stars. Since powerful gravitational perturbations from two stars lead to destructive collisions that grind down planetary material, the presence of such planets can be difficult to explained. read more