Alien Planet Has 2 Suns Instead of 1, Hubble Telescope Reveals read more at here www.spinonews.com/index.php/item/973-alien-planet-has-2-suns-instead-of-1-hubble-telescope-reveals

Astronomers have spotted a planet orbiting two stars instead of one. They used the Hubble Space Telescope to observe a phenomenon called gravitational microlensing. 

Several planets that revolve around two, three or more stars are known to exist. But this is the first time astronomers have confirmed such a discovery of a so-called "circumbinary planet" by observing a natural phenomenon called gravitational microlensing, or the bending of light caused by strong gravity around objects in space.   

The exoplanet in this study, named OGLE-2007-BLG-349, is located 8,000 light-years from Earth toward the center of the Milky Way. It was first spotted in 2007, astronomers initially identified the system as a planet orbiting only one star, although data did suggest that there was another object in the background. 

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The researchers were not able to examine closely at the time, but to get a better view, the team decided to use the Hubble Space Telescope to examine deep space. Astronomers have found an answer for the binary-star system. They have discovered that the brightness meant two closely orbiting red dwarf stars.

A two-planet, single-star model is not possible in this scenario, "because a two-planet model with a main sequence host would appear to be too bright to match the data, while a two-planet system orbiting a white dwarf would be too faint," the study's authors wrote in The Astronomical Journal.

 

Read the Original article on Space.com.