Scientists find Star Wars-like planet with a highly unusual orbit
The planet follows a peculiar, perpendicular path around a pair of brown dwarfs. Brown dwarfs, sometimes referred to as failed stars, possess a mass greater than gas giant planets but less than stars.
The two brown dwarfs at the centre of this system were initially observed years ago. Scientists noted that the pair eclipse each other from Earth's perspective, resulting in one dwarf being partially obscured.
New analysis of the brown dwarfs' movement revealed a shift, a phenomenon less likely to occur if the dwarfs orbited each other in isolation.
This research has been published in Science Advances.
The discovery adds to a growing list of planets known to orbit binary star systems, reminiscent of the fictional desert planet Tatooine from Star Wars, famous for its double sunsets.
While over a dozen such planets have been identified, this new finding offers a unique glimpse into the dynamics of planetary systems around brown dwarfs.
The new planet's odd orbit sets it apart. But it has not been directly spied, and scientists say more research is needed to be sure it is out there and figure out its mass and orbit.
'I wouldn't bet my life that the planet exists yet,' said Simon Albrecht, an astrophysicist with Aarhus University who had no role in the new study.
Probing these wacky celestial bodies can help us understand how conditions beyond our solar system may yield planets vastly different from our own, said study author Thomas Baycroft with the University of Birmingham.
Planets circling twin stars "existed in sci-fi for decades before we knew that they could even really exist in reality', he said.
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The Independent
27-07-2025
- The Independent
George Lucas finally comes to Comic-Con to give a preview of his new museum
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Spectator
26-07-2025
- Spectator
Is this CS Lewis' most prescient work?
It's been 80 years since CS Lewis' remarkably prescient, That Hideous Strength, was published. The final book in a sci-fi trilogy, the novel recounts the battle for the soul of humanity in the heart of England. Even in 1945, George Orwell saw that: 'Plenty of people in our age do entertain the monstrous dreams of power that Mr Lewis attributes to his characters [the NICE scientists], and we are within sight of the time when such dreams will be realisable.' Little did he realise how soon his fears would play out. That Hideous Strength focuses around the National Institute of Coordinated Experiments (NICE), which aims to bring Britain under the rule of Science, beginning the process of transforming the human race into an inorganic species governed by a single, immortal leader. 'The human race is to become all Technocracy,' NICE high-up Professor Augustus Frost explains to recruit Mark Studdock. The plans include the sterilisation and selective breeding of the population, with indoctrination achieved through biochemical conditioning and the 'direct manipulation of the brain'. Ultimately, organic life is to be abolished: the new humans will be formed of chemicals and live on a 'clean' planet divested of vegetation. Crucially, without sex, man 'will finally become governable'. Eighty years on, the story reads like a fictional exploration of transhumanism and current technologies, from chips in the brain to global digital systems for identification and travel. A mysterious figure – part Arthurian, part Christ-like – leads the fight for an alternative future rooted in spiritual enlightenment and a wholesome kind of Englishness. Like The Chronicles of Narnia, That Hideous Strength is a classic tale of Good vs Evil but, as its subtitle A Modern Fairy-Tale for Grown-Ups suggests, it's also a sober exploration of the direction 'scientific progress' is taking us. NICE leaders choose Edgestow as the place to begin the takeover, where the 'progressive element' of the nearby university makes for easy pickings. The fellows nod through the sale of some college land while the faculty serves as a 'recruiting office' for the institute. Their prize recruit is Mark, a 'sociologist who can write', to produce newspaper articles to persuade the British public that change is necessary. 'It's the educated reader who CAN be gulled,' explains Lord Feverstone, a figure working with both government and NICE. 'When did you meet a workman who believes the papers? He takes it for granted that they're all propaganda and skips the leading articles…But the educated public, the people who read the high-brow weeklies, don't need reconditioning. They're all right already. They'll believe anything.' Deception will only be needed in the early stages: 'Once the thing gets going we shan't have to bother about the great heart of the British public'. 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That Hideous Strength has come into its time.
Daily Mail
25-07-2025
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Unavoidable life event that affects MILLIONS of people linked to premature death, experts warn
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