A new study has confirmed that Luke Skywalker's home planet Tatooine would have formed further away from its current location in the Star Wars Universe, according to a University of Bristol press release.
The study was conducted to observe "its real world counterparts," by using the Kepler space telescope.
Kepler 34 (AB) is a circumbinary planet, like the fictional Star Wars planet, because its orbit encompasses two stars.
There are only a few environments more extreme than a binary star system which planet formation can take placee.
Dr. Zoe Leinhardt and coworkers from Bristol's School of Physics have finished computer simulations of the early stages of planet formation around the binary stars, which was documented in a study published this week in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The researchers used a sophisticated model that "calculates the effect of gravity and physical collisions on and between one million planetary building blocks," according to the press release.
What they discovered was that most of these planets likely formed further away from the central binary stars and then moved to where they are currently located.
"Our simulations show that the circumbinary disk is a hostile environment even for large, gravitationally strong objects," said Leinhardt in a statement, according to the release. "Taking into account data on collisions as well as the physical growth rate of planets, we found that Kepler 34(AB)b would have struggled to grow where we find it now."
Based on the study for Kepler-34, researchers now assume most currently known circumbinary planets have also migrated from their formation locations
"Circumbinary planets have captured the imagination of many science-fiction writers and film-makers - our research shows just how remarkable such planets are," said Stefan Lines, lead author of the study, according to the release. "Understanding more about where they form will assist future exoplanet discovery missions in the hunt for earth-like planets in binary star systems
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