New Planet With Twin Suns Discovered Near Center of Milky Way!

by Micah J. Fleck

Tatooine, is that you? In a new discovery by astronomers, a newly discovered planet, in a new star system called OGLE-2007-BLG-349, has been shown to orbit around a pair of stars, not just one. This isn’t at all unusual, actually, as any astrophysicist could tell you, but it is nonetheless an exciting find – especially considering the techniques used to make the discovery, which involves bending light in such a way that it “fools” Earth- and Space-based telescopes into seeing much farther than they are actually physically able.

Christian Science Monitor explains:

Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope observations and a promising technique that spots gravitational microlensing, or bending of light that passes between celestial objects, astronomers finally were able to determine that the third object they had identified was indeed a star. When light from one star is bent and amplified as it aligns with its partner star while the second one momentarily passes in front of it during its orbit, like a magnifying glass passing in front of an object, this is called microlensing. By looking at how the light bends and thus distorts the image of the objects around it during microlensing events, astronomers can glean information about those objects.

For the full article and explanation, click here.