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JPL Finds Planets Around Twin Stars


(now imagine this with two suns)

China grabbed some headlines the other day showing off their robotic moon probe, but since we’ve already got a couple roving away on another planet, our friends at the Jet Propulsion Labs have been looking into some other things. Like finding planets that orbit around twin stars, called binary systems. The new findings from the Spitzer Space Telescope suggest planets are just as likely to be found around twin stars as they are a single star.

What’s the big deal? Well, nearly half of all stars in the universe are binary -- so there are a lot more planets than were ever suspected. And on those planets, the sunset could look just like the scene from Star Wars (err, episode IV), as Luke wistfully watches the double sunset on Tatooine.

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Photo by mikeyworld