Astronomers have detected a new planet that is orbiting two suns courtesy of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. This binary star system was first observed in 2007.
To detect exoplanets, scientists rely on a method where these alien worlds are measured by tracking how stellar light dims, as planets block light from their star, as it travels in our direction. This technique is utilized by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope.
Most exoplanets detected by our space telescopes only orbit a single host star, much like our own solar system. However, there are a handful of planets that are part of binary star systems.
This newly discovered planet about 8,000 light years away is apparently more unique than other binary star systems.
Scientists detected this planet while working on the OGLE (Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment) mission of the University of Warsaw by using gravitational lensing (or microlensing) which involves light bending due to a star or planet's gravitational forces.
Following a microlensing event that consisted of triple distortions known as OGLE-2007-BLG-349 in 2007, scientists were not able to confirm its origins due to spacetime irregularities.
Now, new data from the Hubble Space Telescope has confirmed that there are two stars controlled by a rather large exoplanet.
According to astronomer Andrzej Udalski from the University of Warsaw, OGLE has already detected over 17,000 microlensing events. However, this is the first time that this type of event was generated by a circumbinary planetary system.
Based on Hubble's data, this alien world has been confirmed to be the lowest mass circumbinary planet system ever detected, similar to the mass of Saturn.
This new study was published in the Astronomical Journal.