Friday 16 September 2011 Article Source: LINK

Reality catches up with science fiction as Nasa release animations of newly discovered Kepler-16b, a planet where two suns set over the horizon, much like Luke Skywalker's home of Tatooine in the Star Wars.

In an iconic scene in Star Wars, Luke Skywalker gazes into the distance as two suns set on the horizon of his homeland.

Now Nasa has discovered that Kepler-16b, much like the fictional Tatooine, is a circumbinary planet - a planet that orbits two parent stars - as opposed to the Earth and its sole star, the Sun.

The planet, about 200 light years from Earth, was glimpsed with the the space agency's Kepler space telescope, which monitors the brightness of 155,000 stars, according to research published in the journal Science.

While astronomers have previously glimpsed planets they believed were orbiting two stars, this discovery offers the first proof as they had never before seen one passing in front of its two Suns until now.

"Kepler-16b is the first confirmed, unambiguous example of a circumbinary planet - a planet orbiting not one, but two stars," said co-author Josh Carter of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

"This discovery is stunning," said co-author Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution for Science Department of Terrestrial Magnetism.

"Once again, what used to be science fiction has turned into reality."

However the similarities end there. Whilst Luke Skywalker's native planet was hot and desert-like, Saturn-sized Kepler-16b is freezing, with surface temperatures reaching chills of -73C to -101C.