File:Kepler-16.jpg

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English: From the original caption: NASA's Kepler mission has discovered a world where two suns set over the horizon instead of just one. The planet, called Kepler-16b, is the most "Tatooine-like" planet yet found in our galaxy and is depicted here in this artist's concept with its two stars. Tatooine is the name of Luke Skywalker's home world in the science fiction movie Star Wars. In this case, the planet is not thought to be habitable. It is a cold world, with a gaseous surface, but like Tatooine, it circles two stars. The largest of the two stars, a K dwarf, is about 69 percent the mass of our sun, and the smallest, a red dwarf, is about 20 percent the sun's mass.

Most of what we know about the size of stars comes from pairs of stars that are oriented toward Earth in such a way that they are seen to eclipse each other. These star pairs are called eclipsing binaries. In addition, virtually all that we know about the size of planets around other stars comes from their transits across their stars. The Kepler-16 system combines the best of both worlds with planetary transits across an eclipsing binary system. This makes Kepler-16b one of the best-measured planets outside our solar system.

Kepler-16 orbits a slowly rotating K-dwarf that is, nevertheless, very active with numerous star spots. Its other parent star is a small red dwarf. The planetary orbital plane is aligned within half a degree of the stellar binary orbital plane. All these features combine to make Kepler-16 of major interest to studies of planet formation as well as astrophysics.

Español: Extractos del pie de figura original: La misión Kepler de la agencia estadounidense del espacio y la aeronáutica (NASA) ha descubierto un mundo en el que no uno sino dos soles se ponen en el horizonte. El planeta, llamado Kepler-16b, no parece ser habitable. Se trata de un mundo frío y de superficie gaseosa, pero que orbita dos estrellas. La más grande de estas es una enana K de unas 0,69 veces la masa de nuestro Sol, y la más chica es una enana roja de aproximadamente 0,20 veces la masa del Sol.

La mayor parte de lo que sabemos del tamaño de las estrellas proviene de pares de estrellas alineadas con la Tierra de forma que parecen estar eclipsándose. A un sistema de este tipo se le llama «binaria eclipsada». Por otra parte, casi todo lo que sabemos del tamaño de los planetas cercanos a estrellas proviene de sus tránsitos frente a sus estrellas. En el sistema Kepler-16 se combinan ambos casos al observarse un planeta transitando frente a una binaria eclipsada. Esto hace de Kepler-16b uno de los planetas mejor medidos fuera de nuestro sistema solar.

Kepler-16b orbita una enana K que rota lentamente y que, sin embargo, es muy activa y tiene numerosas manchas estelares. La otra estrella madre es una enana roja pequeña. El plano orbital del planeta difiere sólo medio grado del plano orbital de la estrella binaria. Todas esta características hacen que Kepler-16b sea de gran interés para estudios de formación planetaria y astrofísica.

Date

15 September 2011

Source

PIA14724: Where the Sun Sets Twice (Artist Concept)

Author

NASA/JPL-Caltech

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File:Kepler-16.jpg

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15 September 2011

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