Astronomers just detected an extremely rare exoplanet that possesses three suns. Reminiscent of the Tatooine star system in the cult sci-fi film series, Star Wars, this alien planet boasts three suns which is now a reality at what once used to be known as an imaginary, dry two-star system.

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Now, scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have identified this giant gas planet called KELT-4Ab that orbits three stars. New findings reveal that the first star known as KELT-A is being orbited by KELT-4Ab while the other two stars known as KELT-B and KELT-C are more distant from the exoplanet, where the two stars seem to gravitate to one another and orbit each other.

Researchers also estimate that it takes the two other stars some 4,000 years to complete a single orbit around KELT-A.

In this new study, this discovery has been crucial in providing more insight about unique stellar formations and systems in deep space. This marks the fourth triple star system to be ever detected which is also the closest one to the Milky Way galaxy.

Researchers describe the sunrise and sunset over at the surface of Jupiter-like KELT-4Ab, where its sun, KELT-A would appear to be 40 times bigger than our own sun, when we see it from Earth. This also means that KELT-A holds a very close distance to the massive gas giant exoplanet.

However, the view of the other two stars, KELT-B and KELT-C from the surface of KELT-4ab would seem like the moon shining from Earth since the two stars are more distant from the exoplanet than KELT-A. 

Astronomers have known about the KELT star system for years now where they initially confirmed that there are two stars orbiting the massive exoplanet than just one star. These new findings now confirm that the system possesses three stars, that has been detected by the robotic telescope known as Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT).

The KELT system was detected by two of these robotic telescopes based in Arizona in the United States and another one in South Africa. Since the confirmation of the triple star system's existence, giant gas exoplanets such as KELT-4Ab can yield new knowledge about how stellar formations like this and their ability to survive since they are located from a very close distance from their host star.

This new study published in the Astronomical Journal.