{"id":556338,"date":"2026-05-04T19:24:48","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T19:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/?p=556338"},"modified":"2026-05-04T19:24:48","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T19:24:48","slug":"astronomers-discover-27-potential-planets-each-orbiting-two-stars-just-like-the-fictional-tatooine-in-star-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/?p=556338","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers Discover 27 Potential Planets Each Orbiting Two Stars, Just Like the Fictional Tatooine in ‘Star Wars’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The findings could more than double our current database of worlds that loop around binary star systems. But researchers need to analyze more data before they can officially celebrate a new trove of far, far away exoplanets<\/h2>\n
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Rudy Molinek<\/p>\n

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Tatooine is a fictional desert planet with two suns. No such planet had been found when this scene in Star Wars: Episode IV\u2013A New Hope<\/em> <\/em>\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200bwas created.
\n Luke Skywalker Biography Gallery under Fair Use<\/span>
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In a memorable scene from Star Wars: Episode IV\u2013A New Hope<\/em>, future Jedi Luke Skywalker leaves dinner with his aunt and uncle and heads out to an unusual sunset. On the fictional desert planet Tatooine, not one, but two suns fall toward the horizon.<\/p>\n

When the movie was released in 1977, scientists hadn\u2019t yet discovered any planets outside of our solar system, called exoplanets, let alone one orbiting a two-star system. Now, in a study published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society <\/em>on May 4\u2014considered Star Wars Day by fans\u2014astronomers say they\u2019ve identified 27 new potential planets, each with two stellar hosts. The trove could more than double the number of known circumbinary planets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the original Star Wars<\/em> was released, we didn\u2019t know that there were exoplanets at all,\u201d says Sara Webb, an astrophysicist at the Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, who was not involved in the research, to the Guardian<\/em>\u2019s Donna Lu. \u201cA lot of things that are predicted in art and in artistic concepts of what the universe might be, we tend to find it \u2026 in science as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Need to know: Why is it \u201cStar Wars\u201d Day?<\/p>\n

May 4\u2014or May the 4th, some might say\u2014is an informal commemorative day that\u2019s a play on the popular Star Wars<\/em> phrase \u201cMay the force be with you.\u201d The date spread online among fans, and Disney, which acquired the production company behind Star Wars<\/em> in 2012, now uses it to promote the franchise, reported the Associated Press\u2019 Andrew DeMillo in 2025.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Astronomers have now discovered more than 6,000 confirmed exoplanets, but fewer than 20 of them loop around binary star systems. Most of these far, far away planets have been found by tracking a star\u2019s light, because it dims when an object passes in front of it. This method works best for finding planets with simple orbits that happen align perfectly with a ground- or space-based instrument\u2019s line of sight. In binary or multiple star systems\u2014how most of the universe\u2019s stars are thought to exist\u2014planets are more likely to have irregular orbits and not come into our view.<\/p>\n

Still, the transit method allowed astronomers to find some circumbinary planets, including the first confirmed one, Kepler-16b. It\u2019s a gas giant roughly the size and mass of Saturn located nearly 250 light-years from Earth.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, we can\u2019t see the individual object, all we see is the total light coming from it,\u201d Joshua Carter, who helped discover Kepler-16b in 2011 as an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told Smithsonian<\/em> magazine\u2019s Joseph Stromberg at the time. When a planet moves in front of its star, \u201cyou see a very small, little dip in the total light from the system, and then we infer based upon its shape and basic properties that it\u2019s an object transiting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Astronomers can also watch how two stars in a binary system eclipse one another, which happens on a predictable schedule, in a technique called apsidal precession. When a variation can\u2019t be explained by stellar interactions or the general theory of relativity, that hints that a third body might be throwing off the stars\u2019 dance.<\/p>\n

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Real-life Tatooine planet candidates discovered orbiting twin suns<\/p>\n

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This method hasn\u2019t previously been used in a large-scale planet search. So, researchers tested it out on data from 1,590 binary star systems collected by NASA\u2019s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Their analysis revealed that 27 of them might host planetary mass objects, and more than half of the perturbers might contain less mass than Jupiter. To confirm that planets are truly present, however, the team must analyze more data, such as the light emitted by the candidates, says study co-author Margo Thornton, an astronomer at the University of New South Wales in Australia, to the Guardian<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In an earlier study, published last December in the Astrophysical Journal Letters<\/em>, another team of astronomers proposed that planets are rarer in binary star systems, as the unique physics of those environments isn\u2019t conducive to maintaining an orbit long-term.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo things can happen: Either the planet gets very, very close to the binary, suffering tidal disruption, or being engulfed by one of the stars, or its orbit gets significantly perturbed by the binary to be eventually ejected from the system,\u201d said study co-author Mohammad Farhat, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley, in a statement. \u201cIn both cases, you get rid of the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, with the discovery of more than two dozen potential circumbinary planets, the team behind the new study hopes to change how researchers hunt for exoplanets, particularly around unusual star systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of our current knowledge on planets is biased, based on how we\u2019ve looked for them,\u201d Thornton says in a statement. \u201cWe\u2019ve mostly found the easiest ones to detect. This new method could help us uncover a large population of hidden planets.\u201d<\/p>\n