Scientists find Star-Wars-like planet with two suns

Sep 15, 2011, 19:50 GMT

Washington - Astronomers have discovered a planet orbiting two stars, a finding remniscent of the fictional home planet of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars.

But the discovery some 200 light years from Earth is no science fiction. Scientists using the Kepler telescope have found the cold, gaseous planet known as Kepler-16b orbiting a binary star system.

The Saturn-sized planet orbits the two stars, which are both smaller than our Sun.

It is the first known planet to orbit a system of two stars.

'This discovery confirms a new class of planetary systems that could harbour life,' Kepler principal investigator William Borucki said. 'Given that most stars in our galaxy are part of a binary system, this means the opportunities for life are much broader than if planets form only around single stars.'

The finding is to be published in the journal Science Friday.

The planet-hunting Kepler space telescope launched in 2009 and is finely tuned enough to detect Earth-sized planets orbiting distant stars. The 590-million-dollar telescope programme is pointed at a large swath of the Milky Way galaxy, which contains about 4.5 million stars.