SUNRISE and sunset on a planet far, far away would be twice as spectacular as here on Earth, astronomers say.
NASA today will announce the discovery of a planet with two suns, like Tatooine in the movie Star Wars.
The newly-found planet, Kepler-16b, is named after the NASA Kepler space telescope, which is on a mission to find Earth-sized planets capable of supporting life.
While this planet is too cold, between -100C and -70C, scientists say it is a "treasure" worthy of further investigation.
"Kepler-16b is the first confirmed, unambiguous example of a circumbinary planet - a planet orbiting not one, but two stars," Josh Carter, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, says. "Again, we're finding our solar system is only one example of the variety of planetary systems nature can create."
Leave a comment