Washington: Astronomers using the US Kepler Space Telescope said on Monday they have found the largest planet yet discovered that orbits a pair of binary stars.
The new planet, Kepler-1647b, is 3,700 light-years away and about 4.4 billion years old, roughly the same age as the Earth, according to a team led by researchers from the US space agency NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre and San Diego State University (SDSU).
The planet has a mass and radius nearly identical to that of Jupiter, making it the largest transiting circumbinary planet ever found, Xinhua reported.
The stars it orbits are similar to the Sun, with one slightly larger than our home star and the other slightly smaller.
Planets orbiting two stars are called circumbinary planets, or sometimes "Tatooine" planets, after Luke Skywalker's homeland in "Star Wars".
Using NASA's Kepler telescope, astronomers looked for slight dips in brightness that hint a planet might be transiting in front of a star, blocking some of the star's light.
"But finding circumbinary planets is much harder than finding planets around single stars," said co-author William Welsh of the SDSU.
"The transits are not regularly spaced in time and they can vary in duration and even depth," Welsh added.
The new planet was first noticed in 2011, but it took the team years to confirm it's indeed a circumbinary planet, with the help of a network of amateur astronomers in the KELT Follow-Up Network, which consists of small and mid-size telescopes used for confirming transiting planets.
"It's a bit curious that this biggest planet took so long to confirm, since it is easier to find big planets than small ones," said SDSU astronomer Jerome Orosz, another co-author on the study.
"It took so long to confirm because its orbital period is so long," Orosz added.
The planet takes 1,107 days -- just over three years -- to orbit its host stars, the longest period of any confirmed transiting exoplanet found so far.
The new planet, Kepler-1647b, is 3,700 light-years away and about 4.4 billion years old, roughly the same age as the Earth, according to a team led by researchers from the US space agency NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre and San Diego State University (SDSU).
The planet has a mass and radius nearly identical to that of Jupiter, making it the largest transiting circumbinary planet ever found, Xinhua reported.
Planets orbiting two stars are called circumbinary planets, or sometimes "Tatooine" planets, after Luke Skywalker's homeland in "Star Wars".
Advertisement
"But finding circumbinary planets is much harder than finding planets around single stars," said co-author William Welsh of the SDSU.
Advertisement
The new planet was first noticed in 2011, but it took the team years to confirm it's indeed a circumbinary planet, with the help of a network of amateur astronomers in the KELT Follow-Up Network, which consists of small and mid-size telescopes used for confirming transiting planets.
Advertisement
"It took so long to confirm because its orbital period is so long," Orosz added.
Advertisement
COMMENTS
Advertisement
Are Exomoons Real? Scientists Debate Discoveries Outside Solar System NASA's Kepler Data Adds 301 Planets, Thanks to Machine Learning NASA Bids Goodbye To Planet-Hunting Kepler Space Telescope World's Largest Isolated Tribe Makes Rare Appearance In New Footage 4 Passengers Die As 12 Coaches Of Chandigarh-Dibrugarh Express Derail In UP Why BJP Lost Lok Sabha Polls In Uttar Pradesh - 6 Reasons In Party Report Sensex Breaches 81,000 Mark, Nifty Scales 24,800 Peak On IT, FMCG Gains 'Yodha' Is A Mammoth Documentation Of India's Wars And Battles Woman Dies After Jumping Off Elevated Platform At Delhi Metro Station: Cops Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.