#plnaet

"KEPLER DISCOVERS 'TATOOINE' PLANET WITH 2 SUNS MAKING IT BIGGEST EVER FOUND"

Scientists using NASA's Kepler space telescope have discovered the biggest planet to orbit two suns, similar to Luke Skywalker's home planet of Tatooine in the 'Star Wars' universe. This real-life gas giant is about the size and mass of Jupiter and it has a very wide orbit, circling its host stars in 1,107 Earth days. Furthermore, this star also resides in its stars' "habitable zone", the range of distances at which liquid water could be stable on a world's surface. Although Kepler-1647b is a gas giant (it has no surface), any moons circling the giant planet could technically be capable of supporting life. "It’s a bit curious that this biggest planet took so long to confirm, since it is easier to find big planets than small ones," study co-author Jerome Orosz, an astronomer at San Diego State University (SDSU), said in a statement. "But it is because its orbital period is so long. This gas giant lies about 3,700 light-years from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Cygnus. It is quite intriguing at how similar the planet's two parent stars are compared to our sun - both are about the same size as the sun and they are both about 4.4 billion years old (our sun is only 200 million years older). The results of the team's findings were unveiled yesterday at the 228th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in San Diego.