Many planets have two suns

Planets can be very popular in the disks of flying dust around twin stars.(Photo: BBC)

The sight of the two suns on a planet is not only on movies. NASA has found that number of binary systems is as much as our single system.

NASA's Sptitzer Space Telescope has found many planetary systems orbiting two stars, rather than around a star like the solar system. Scientists used an infrared camera on the Spitzer glass to search for dust discs around twin stars. These dust disks are a collection of debris left in the process of forming planets.

"We know these stars, and the question is whether there are any planets on which you can see the sun setting," Karl Stapelfeldt, from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said. . "It is now possible to conclude with certainty that there must be such planets, based on Spitzer observations."

Dust disks around the stars

The researchers searched for dust disks in 62 binary star systems, located 50 to 200 light-years from Earth. Data show that about 40% of these binary systems have dust disks - higher than the frequency around the single stars. This proves that the number of planets that fly around binary stars is at least as high as around single stars.

Planets and binary star systems. AU is astronomical unit, equal to approx
way from the earth to the sun. (Photo: BBC)

In systems where two stars lie 50 to 500 astronomical AU units (1 AU is equal to the distance from the earth to the sun), dust disks often surround one of the stars.

But in the systems where the two stars were 3 to 50 AU apart, there was no disc of dust. Scientists reasoning gravity has pulled the debris into the deep universe, preventing the process of forming planets.

However, in the binary star systems closer together, from 0-3 AU, the researchers wonder that the number of dust disks is very large, appearing in 60% of cases. In these systems, dust disks will surround both stars, instead of just embracing one. And any witness who stands on the planet in that disk of dust will witness the double sunset as on the photo.

In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker watches the sun set from his desert planet. (Photo: BBC)

T. An