The Planet Factory: Exoplanets and the Search for a Second Earth by Elizabeth Tasker

Author:Elizabeth Tasker [Tasker, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2017-09-07T04:00:00+00:00

Searching for Tatooine

One of the most iconic views in science fiction cinema is the twin suns setting over the desert planet of Star Wars’ Tatooine. Seen together rising and setting, Tatooine does not orbit just one sun, but circles both stars of the binary. This is known as a circumbinary, or P-type, orbit, in contrast with the previous circumstellar, or S-type, orbit, where only one star of the binary hosts the planet. While such planets were only imagined when the Star Wars franchise began, it turns out that they are entirely possible.

Unlike the planets circling single stars, a circumbinary planet orbits further away from the binary pair. This reduces its influence on the stars’ motion, making its presence harder to detect from the radial velocity wobble. Instead, these worlds need to be caught traversing across one of the stars, or by their gravitational pull adjusting the period of the binary’s orbit.

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