Double trouble
This real-life scenario resembles Tatooine from Star Wars.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (USRA)
But in recent decades, astronomers have located 14 Tatooine-like planets in the universe. Technically known as circumbinary planets, these orbit pairs of stars.
They typically take a while to find, but a planet described on November 10 in The Astronomical Journal was spotted in record time.
When using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), researchers only had about 30 days to observe the star system before it focused on another part of the sky.
MARK GARLICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Science Photo Library/Getty Images
The study reports new techniques for spotting these types of planets that could open the door to discovering even more Tatooine-like planets.