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Tatooine's Double-Sunset a Common Sight

Posted by Zonk on from the double-shadows-means-twice-as-scary dept.

anthemaniac writes "Thirty years ago, Luke Skywalker beheld something that scientists are just now realizing is likely quite common in the universe: double sunsets. Astronomers have long known that binary star systems are common. And models suggested that planets could form in these systems, even though there's a double-tug of gravity on the material that would have to form a planet. Observations from NASA's Spitzer telescope, show that binary systems are just as likely to be surrounded by planet-forming debris disks are are lone stars."

3 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Planetary Orbit? by Lars+T. · · Score: 5, Informative

    How would the planet orbit them though?

    Would it have to be far enough away so they appeared as one, or go into some crazy chaotic close orbit? Look at the image in TFA. Either the stars are closer than 3 AU, then the planet(s) circle around them both, or they are farther away than 50 AU, then the planet(s) circle one of them (it doesn't mention if there could be planets about both, but IMHO that's also possible). In between, no planets will form.
    --

    Lars T.

    To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

  2. Sundog by XanC · · Score: 3, Informative

    Neat picture! Doesn't have anything to do with latitude, though; it's the ice crystals in the clouds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundog

  3. Old news by Sigma+7 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Mercury has a double sunset - with the same sun setting twice without going over the sky: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,8 36746,00.html.

    This was discovered sometime in 1967.