First Planet Orbiting Two Stars confirmed by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope

If you can imagine a world with 2 sunsets and sunrises each day, science has now confirmed that it does in fact exist on another world. Using Kepler Space Telescope, NASA researchers have been able to confirm the existence of what they refer to as a circumbinary planet. That is, a planet orbiting two stars.

While the current discovery, some 200 light-years from Earth, appears to be a cold gaseous world without much hope for life as we know it, the discovery does give scientists hope.

“This discovery confirms a new class of planetary systems that could harbor 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. This milestone discovery confirms a theory that scientists have had for decades but could not prove until now.”

The planet known as Kepler-16b appears to be a “cold world about the size of Saturn and thought to be made up of about half rock and half gas” according to NASA. The twin stars about which 16b orbits (known as the Kepler-16 system) are small when compared to our own sun. The smallest is about one-fifth the size of our sun and the other is juet a little over two-thirds the size.

One year on Kepler-16b is about 299 Earth days. Because the parent stars are smaller and cooler than our sun, the orbit of 16b appears to put it out of range for the likely existence of liquid water on the surface. However, much like the icy worlds in our own solar system like Jupiter’s Europa, tidal forces and geothermal energy may paint a different picture below the surface.