It is discoveries like this that will change how we view the universe.  The discovery of exoplanets in the last 10 years or so has changed astronomy forever!  And as cool as this is it isn’t the first time they spotted something like it.  However these discoveries are becoming more frequent:

Just like Tatooine of “Star Wars” fame, this newly found exoplanet orbits two stars instead of one. This marks the 10th so-called circumbinary planet found by NASA’s Kepler Mission. These planets are proving to be more common than we’d ever thought possible, and the new discovery indicates that even more might be hiding out of sight.

The planet has been dubbed Kepler-453b, and it’s in the habitable or “Goldilocks” zone of its stars. That means it’s the right distance from its host stars to potentially hold liquid water. Scientists love finding planets in the zone, because it means there’s at least a faint hope that the worlds could be receptive to life.

What do you think these new types of star systems will let us know about other types of planets?  And will this indicate good sections for SETI and other programs to focus on?

Let’s watch a cool video on planetary orbits on the next page

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