Astronomers Have Found A Real Life ‘Tatooine’

On Monday, Astronomers seemingly stumbled across a planet orbiting two suns, similar to the Star Wars planet Tatooine. Tatooine is the home planet of one Luke Skywalker, and is most known for their unique double sun and triple moon star system.

The planet was discovered amongst rocky debris in a system named SDSS 1557 – between two stars, a white dwarf and a brown dwarf – some 1,000 light years away.

The University College London (UCL) took part in the study and said that “the debris appears to be rocky and suggests that terrestrial planets like Tatooine…. might exist in the system.” Terrestrial planets are planets that are usually rocky, and composed of silicate rocks or metals. In our Solar System there are four Terrestrial Planets (Earth, Mercury, Venus and Mars), but scientists claim there could be thousands more waiting to be discovered.

This discovery comes on the heels of last weeks discovery of 7 Earth like planets 40 light years away in a system called TRAPPIST-1. With more advances in modern technology, the discovery of more and more Earth-like planets could lead to an eventual renaissance of space exploration in a race to find other inhabitable planets.

Next year, the James Webb Telescope will launch, and bring with it an unprecedented view of space, and our solar system. This will allow researchers to perform better atmospheric analysis of planets, and plan for the eventual exploration of them. This is a pretty momentous time for science, and scientists, as we can push the bounds of our knowledge of space further than ever before. Who knows? Maybe we’ll discover a new home planet, or an alien race existing peacefully within these newfound systems.

One thing is for sure, the next 12 months will be interesting in the field of science and exploration. As a giant fan of both, I can’t help but be excited either.

via Straits Times