The next possible “Earth” could be a planet with two suns

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There are five systems more than trillions of miles away from Earth, with several suns that could be hospitable to life. If more suns reminded you of Luke Skywalker’s home planet, Tatooine in Star Wars, you wouldn’t be too far away. Four of these five systems are binary star systems, one of which has at least four sun-like stars rotating around each other at a central point. This news comes through a new report published by the team of scientists who claim to have found evidence that these five systems in question could support life, as reported by Cnet.

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The five systems are known as Kepler-34, Kepler-35, Kepler-38, Kepler-64 and Kepler-413. The system with at least four sun-like stars is Kepler-64, while the scientific team says the other four have two suns, such as Tatooine. However, do not expect anyone in our lives to reach these systems, because they are between 2764 and 5933 light-years away from Earth, according to Cnet, and one light-year equals about 6 trillion miles. Let that math break your brain for a second.

Each of these systems has at least one “giant planet the size of Neptune” or larger, according to Cnet, and each has what is called a “habitable zone,” which is a region where liquid water may be present.

“Life is more likely to evolve on planets in the habitable zone of their system, just like Earth,” co-author Nikolaos Georgakarakos said in a statement, Cnet reported. “Here we investigate whether there is a habitable zone within nine known systems, with two or more stars orbiting giant planets. We show for the first time that Kepler-34, -35, -64, -413 and especially Kepler-38 are suitable for hosting Earth-like worlds with oceans. “According to Cnet, binary star systems, such as Kepler-34, -35, -413, -38 and the planet Tatooine, are “estimated to account for between half and three-quarters of all star systems and only giant planets have been discovered in them until now. “Scientists believe that smaller, non-giant, Earth-like planets could still hide from detection in these systems.

“We have known for some time that binary star systems without giant planets have the potential to house habitable worlds,” co-author Ian Dobbs-Dixon said in a statement, Cnet reported. “What I’ve shown here is that in much of these systems, Earth-like planets can remain habitable even in the presence of giant planets.”

The team came to this conclusion by observing a number of factors in these five systems, such as “class, mass, brightness and spectral energy distribution of stars”, as well as the gravitational effect and radiation impact that these giant planets would have. . on a potential Earth-like planet, according to Cnet.

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“The best candidate for hosting a world that is potentially habitable is the Kepler-38 binary system, about 3970 light-years from Earth and known to contain a planet the size of Neptune,” said Georgakarakos. “Our study confirms that even binary star systems with giant planets are hot targets in search of Earth 2.0. Watch out for tattoos, we’re coming.”

Maybe far, far away, in the future, people will reach these stellar systems, but for now we, the earthlings, will have to settle for just watching movies with binary-sun planets, like those found in Star Wars.

Speaking of Star Wars, check out every modern IGN review of Star Wars movies and then read the IGN list of the top 25 SF movies. Check out this story about possible signs of life detected on Venus afterwards and then read about how the future possibilities of life on Mars continue with this discovery made in 2019.

Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer, guide producer and scientific guru for IGN. You can follow him further Twitter @LeBlancWes.

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