Planet Tatooine from the Star Wars movie was next to two suns. This has long gone beyond the limits of fiction, because the NASA Kepler space telescope showed that two-star systems can contain planets. True, most of them are rather gaseous. Therefore, scientists asked: if a planet of the earth type revolved around two suns, would there be chances for life?
Chances are that yes. But for this it must be located at the correct distance. New research has shown that under favorable conditions we will get a planet with water and a long-term potential for life forms.
The scientists of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory created a model of the planet in the Kepler 35 system. The Kepler A and B stellar pair already contains the planet Kepler 35b (8 times as large as Earth and with an orbit of 131.5 days). But they excluded the gravitational influence of this planet and added a hypothetical one on which there is already water. They tracked climate change during the period of rotation (341-380 days).
It turned out that two-star systems have potential. The bottom line is the habitable zone. This is the distance from the star to the planet, which allows you to save liquid water on the surface. Since we have two stars at once, the distance will depend on the center of mass. To complicate matters, the planet does not make the orbital path in a circle, but pass through the gravitational oscillation of stars. The model showed that under given conditions, the planet has high chances. She would have experienced many changes in surface temperature. Since there will be little water vapor in the atmosphere, average temperatures jump by 2 ° C. Usually, a close distance to a star makes global temperatures constant. The fact is that the presence of water vapor (a large amount) creates a veil that establishes stability. So, the object beyond the habitable zone will be covered with an ice crust, and the close distance will turn it into Venus with a terrible greenhouse effect and high temperatures.
The model also showed that there would be fewer clouds on a hypothetical planet. So, an incredible view of the double sunsets.
