When the first Star Wars movie was released in 1977, it featured the now-iconic two-sun, “circumbinary” planet Tatooine. Image Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

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   Fraser Cain (fraser@m.universetoday.com)'s status on Friday, 06-Dec-2024 02:43:32 JST Fraser Cain

   Astronomers have found some unusual planetary systems, including planets that orbit around two stars. These are circumbinary planets, and it takes special conditions to be stable. Even if the planets can remain in orbit around both stars, what about their moons? Astronomers haven't found any exomoons yet, but a new paper explores the conditions under which they could form and survive. This is exciting because many would be in the habitable zone of the binary stars.

   https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.02847