Kepler Discovers a Planet with Two Suns

Artist concept of Kepler-16bThe existence of a world with a double sunset, as portrayed in the film Star Wars more than 30 years ago, is now scientific fact. NASA’s Kepler mission has made the first unambiguous detection of a circumbinary planet — a planet orbiting two stars — 200 light-years from Earth.



2 thoughts on “Kepler Discovers a Planet with Two Suns”

  1. Is the planet’s orbit locked in with the orbits of the two suns?
    For instance, is the planet’s orbital period exactly 6 times that of the sun’s orbital period about each other? (229/41 seems close)

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