Where Your Shadow Has Company
Explanation:
Want to take a relaxing
interstellar
vacation?
Consider visiting
Kepler-16b,
a world in a binary star system.
In fact Kepler-16b is the first discovered
circumbinary planet.
It was detected in a wide 229 day orbit around a close pair of cool,
low-mass stars some 200 light-years away.
The parent stars eclipse one another in their orbits, observed as
a dimming of starlight.
But
Kepler-16b itself was
discovered by following the additional very slight dimming
produced during its transits.
Like sci-fi planet Tatooine of Star Wars fame,
two suns would set
over its horizon.
Still, Kepler 16b is probably not a Tatooine-like terrestrial
desert world.
Instead, Kepler 16b is thought to be a cold, uninhabitable
planet with about the mass of Saturn and a gaseous surface ...
so plan to dress accordingly.
Or, choose another
Visions of
the Future vacation destination.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
