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Related Concept Videos

Kepler's First Law of Planetary Motion01:10

Kepler's First Law of Planetary Motion

In the early 17th century, German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler postulated three laws for the motion of planets in the solar system. He formulated his first two laws based on the observations of his forebears, Nikolaus Copernicus and Tycho Brahe.
Polish astronomer Nikolaus Copernicus put forth a theory that stated a heliocentric model for the solar system. According to this heliocentric theory, all the planets, including Earth, orbit the Sun in circular orbits.
On the other hand,...
Kepler's Second Law of Planetary Motion01:29

Kepler's Second Law of Planetary Motion

In the early 17th century, German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler postulated three laws for the motion of planets in the solar system. His first law states that all planets orbit the Sun in an elliptical orbit, with the Sun at one of the ellipse's foci. Therefore, the distance of a planet from the Sun varies throughout its revolution around the Sun.
While in an elliptical orbit, the total energy of the planet is conserved. Therefore, the planet slows down when it is at apogee and...
Kepler's Third Law of Planetary Motion01:18

Kepler's Third Law of Planetary Motion

In the early 17th century, German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler postulated three laws for the motion of planets in the solar system. In 1909, he formulated his first two laws based on the observations of his forebears, Nikolaus Copernicus and Tycho Brahe. However, in 1918, he published his third law of planetary motion, which gives a precise mathematical relationship between a planet's average distance from the Sun and the amount of time it takes to revolve around the Sun. It...
Circular Orbits and Critical Velocity for Satellites01:16

Circular Orbits and Critical Velocity for Satellites

The Moon orbits around the Earth. In turn, the Earth (and other planets) orbit the Sun. The space directly above our atmosphere is filled with artificial satellites in orbit. One can examine the circular orbit, the simplest kind of orbit, to understand the relationship between the speed and the period of planets and satellites with respect to their positions and the bodies that they orbit.
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) first suggested that the Earth and all other planets orbit the Sun in...
Acceleration due to Gravity on Other Planets01:24

Acceleration due to Gravity on Other Planets

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Schwarzschild Radius and Event Horizon01:21

Schwarzschild Radius and Event Horizon

No object with a finite mass can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. This fact has an interesting consequence in the domain of extremely high gravitational fields.
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Surface Mapping of Earth-like Exoplanets using Single Point Light Curves
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Surface Mapping of Earth-like Exoplanets using Single Point Light Curves

Published on: May 10, 2020

Kepler-16: a transiting circumbinary planet.

Laurance R Doyle1, Joshua A Carter, Daniel C Fabrycky

  • 1Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, SETI Institute, 189 Bernardo Avenue, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. ldoyle@seti.org

Science (New York, N.Y.)
|September 17, 2011
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Astronomers discovered a Saturn-like planet orbiting two stars, a circumbinary planet. Data from the Kepler spacecraft precisely determined the dimensions of the planet and its host stars.

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Last Updated: May 29, 2026

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Area of Science:

  • * Exoplanetary Science
  • * Stellar Astrophysics
  • * Planetary Formation

Background:

  • * The Kepler spacecraft has provided extensive data on exoplanets.
  • * Understanding planetary systems around binary stars is crucial for exoplanet diversity.
  • * Circumbinary planets offer unique insights into planet formation mechanisms.

Purpose of the Study:

  • * To report the detection of a planet orbiting a binary star system.
  • * To precisely determine the physical and orbital parameters of the planet and its host stars.
  • * To investigate the formation environment of circumbinary planets.

Main Methods:

  • * Analysis of transit photometry data from the Kepler spacecraft.
  • * Observation of both planetary transits and mutual stellar eclipses.
  • * Precise determination of stellar and planetary masses, radii, and orbital parameters.

Main Results:

  • * Detection of a circumbinary planet with Saturn-like mass and size.
  • * The planet orbits its host stars in a near-circular 229-day period.
  • * The host stars are low-mass (0.20 and 0.69 solar masses) with a 41-day eccentric orbit.
  • * All three bodies exhibit coplanar motion, confined within 0.5°.

Conclusions:

  • * The detected planet is a circumbinary planet, orbiting two stars.
  • * The coplanar motion suggests the planet likely formed within a circumbinary disk.
  • * This discovery provides valuable data for understanding planet formation in binary systems.