October 20, 2007

Habitable Planets Can Form in Binaries Research Suggests


Nearly 20% of all exoplanets found in surveys reside in binary star systems, which can be two, or possibly more, stars orbitting around a common center of mass. But can rocky, terrestrial, life-sustaining planets survive in the complex and harsh nature of a binary system? Nader Haghighipour thinks it can.

Simulations of moon and Mars sized objects lead researchers to believe habitable planets can certainly exist in the binary systems. Check out the research paper here:


I can't believe that researchers didn't know this; haven't they ever seen Tatooine?