This new “Tatooine system” has two stars and two exoplanets

Sometimes science fiction meets reality, and this is the case in space where astronomers have discovered new exoplanets orbiting two suns. Just like in Star Wars with the famous planet Tatooine. There is even talk of a “Tatooine system,” or ring planets, for exoplanets spotted in star systems of two stars.

The first round planet, known as Kepler-16b, was discovered in 2011, followed by two more examples, Kepler-34b and Kepler-35b, in 2012. In twelve years, no fewer than 14 different round worlds have been discovered. But what we learn in the journal natural astronomy It is the month of June that astronomers have spotted a multi-planetary circular system (MCS).

The Tatooine XV system has been discovered

They initially pointed their ground-based telescopes at BEBOP-1, a star system about 1,320 light-years from Earth, more specifically at BEBOP-1b, a round planet discovered in 2020. However, they were surprised to discover a new round planet baptized Bebop – 1 c. The latter thus becomes the fifteenth known Tatooine system, and according to these astronomers, it will be about 65 times more massive than Earth, or five times less than Jupiter. It is therefore the second known MCS, after Kepler-47, discovered in 2012 and to have three exoplanets.

For this discovery, they used the so-called radial velocity method. as the systems it follows bebop (for binaries with orbiting planets) are on average four optical magnitudes brighter than the circular systems identified with Kepler, and they decided to measure the differences in the star’s velocity that cascade with the planet’s orbit. Since these variations are periodic, they make it possible to deduce the planet’s orbital period, thus distinguishing it from others.