A research team of astronomers at San Diego State University and the NASA Goddard Center have discovered a giant planet that is currently orbiting in a solar system that has two suns. The scientists also noted that it is the largest planet they have yet discovered in that solar system.
It is called Kepler 1647-b and it circles the stars in a zone that the scientists consider to be habitable and to contain surface water capable of sustaining life. However, the researchers believe it is a large as Jupiter and likely a gas planet which would not be able to support life.
They have determined that the planet is relatively the same age as Earth at 4.4 billion years and is about 3,700 light years away from Earth. The two sun stars are just slightly larger and smaller than our own sun. The bizarre thing about the discovery is that as the light reaches the researchers, they are actually seeing the planet as it was 3,700 years ago.
Using the Kepler space telescope since 2009, astronomers are able to detect planets by noticing the brightness or the dimness of the particular sun star in a system to detect the movement of planets. Researchers have been said to have located many planets within our own solar system that orbit more than one star. All of them are much smaller than the Jupiter sized Kepler 1647-b.
The larger planets in a solar system are easier to locate for the astronomers because the dimness of the light becomes much more pronounced as it passes by the star. This new planet takes about three years (1,107 days) to make a complete orbit around the stars. The planets that orbit and exist in two star galaxies are harder to detect say the researchers.
Over the years of exploring the galaxy with the Kepler telescope, scientists have found thousands of planets they didn’t know where there. Just a few months ago, it was announced that 1,284 new planets had been discovered and verified.
PHOTO CREDITS: NASA