Are you a star wars fan? If you are, then you’ll probably be pleased to find out that scientist have found a real life Tatooine!
Well, it might be a giant gas planet incapable of sustaining life, but it DOES orbit two stars at once. The planet will be much too cold for it to have any lift on it – or at least any life that we are aware of – but
It was thought that this was impossible, as the gravitational pull of two suns would probably cause most planets to have a disrupted orbit and eventually fall into the star or be flung away into outer space. This doesn’t appears to have happened with this planet.
The thing I think is amazing about this planet is that because it has two suns it has a double sunset. It would be scary/exciting to look up into the sky and see two different suns orbiting. I wonder whether that means that there is only very rarely night on the planet, and whether if it was a rocky planet whether it would have seasons in the same way that the earth has seasons. If it did, I’d imagine that the seasons would be a lot more complex and difficult to predict.
I really hope that scientists find more planets like this. It would be even more exciting to find a planet that orbited three stars (is that possible? Probably not) or a planet that was rocky and capable of sustaining life around a double star system. I doubt it will be long before we see scientists find something like this.