Yuval Ne’eman Distinguished Lectures in Geophysics, Atmosphere and Space Sciences Endowed by Raymond and Beverly Sackler

Lecture: KEPLER TELESCOPE AND THE DISCOVERY OF WORLDS WITH MULTIPLE SUNS

Abstract:

Planets with two suns have long captivated our imagination, yet it was not until 2011 and the continuous monitoring of thousands of eclipsing binaries by Kepler telescope that the first transiting circumbinary planet, Kepler-16b, was detected. Today we know of ten such planetary systems. The discovery of these “worlds with two suns” have made it certain that planet formation around binary stars is robust and can result in systems with diverse physical and orbital characteristics. In this talk, I will review the history of research on planets in binary stars and explain how we detect circumbinary planets. I will also discuss the physical and orbital properties of these systems and explain how they formed, how they acquire their orbital characteristics and whether they could be habitable. I will also discuss our future plans for detecting circumbinary planets using the TESS space telescope.