Real-life 'Tatooine' planet orbiting two suns is discovered

An international team of amateur and professional astronomers have discovered a planet orbiting two suns - similar to the planet in the Star Wars movies.

The planet, which not only orbits two suns but is in turn orbited by a second distant pair of stars, is the first reported case of such a phenomenon.

Located about 5,000 light years from Earth, has been dubbed PH1 in honour of Planet Hunters, a program led by Yale University in the United States which enlists volunteers to look for signs of new planets.

PH1 is orbiting two suns, and in turn is orbited by a second distant pair of stars. Only six planets are known to orbit two stars, researchers say, and none of those are orbited by other distant stars.

“Circumbinary planets are the extremes of planet formation,” said Yale’s Meg Schwamb, lead author of a paper presented on Monday at the annual meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society in Nevada.

“The discovery of these systems is forcing us to go back to the drawing board to understand how such planets can assemble and evolve in these dynamically challenging environments.”