A New Planet

New Planet Kepler-16b discovered by NASA in 2011. Scientists across the world are perplexed. The discovery of a star that orbits around two suns has stunned many. Others are amazed. But it may take years to verify the reports coming from a NASA satellite Kepler, launched two years ago that a star some two hundred light years away orbits around two suns.

Being called Kepler or Tatooine planet, it is made up of hard rocks where gasses are frozen all over it. Reports suggest that it is the size of Saturn.

While detailing about the Kepler Mission of NASA, its website says, “Considering that we want to find planets in the habitable zone of stars like the Sun, the time between transits is about one year. To reliably detect a sequence one needs four transits. Hence, the mission duration needs to be at least three and one half years. If the Kepler Mission continues for longer, it will be able to detect smaller, and more distant planets as well as a larger number of true Earth analogs”.

It further says, “The Kepler instrument is a specially designed 0.95-meter diameter telescope called a photometer or light meter. It has a very large field of view for an astronomical telescope 105 square degrees, which is comparable to the area of your hand held at arm’s length. The fields of view of most telescopes are less than one square degree. Kepler needs the large field of view in order to observe the large number of stars. It stares at the same star field for the entire mission and continuously and simultaneously monitors the brightnesses of more than 100,000 stars for at least 3.5 years, the initial length of the mission, which can be extended”.

But the new star is reported to be lifeless and made of hard rocks all over it. The two suns it is orbiting are smaller in size compared to our own sun. A NASA scientist who is associated with Kepler mission says, “This discovery confirms a new class of planetary systems that could harbor life…Given that most stars in our galaxy are part of a binary system, this means the opportunities for life are much broader than if planets form only around single stars. This milestone discovery confirms a theory that scientists have had for decades but could not prove until now.”