Ankara University scientists in the Turkish capital made it in the annals of Turkish astronomy with Discovery of two planets in the Kepler-451 binary star systemabout 1,336 light-years away from Earth. It’s the second such discovery by Turkish scientists.
Professor Selim Osman Selam, one of university department scientists of Astronomy and Space Sciences, said the planets are nearly twice size of The mass of Jupiter. Their findings were recently published in a international astronomy journal.
The researchers operated two telescopes, one with a diameter of 80 centimeters (31.49 in) located at Ankara University Kreiken Observatory and Istanbul University Telescope in western province of Canakkale. They also used data from observations at Kepler, a retired NASA telescope, and NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) telescopes.
Selam told Anadolu Agency (AA) on Monday that the discoveries were made possible with the temporal variations of eclipses and the system where the planets were discovered had another planet already discovered. “They were in a stable orbit,” he said. added. “It is a difficult task to find planets in binary star systems. It’s actually the first turkish scientific times made such a discovery. Researchers from Ankara University were already behind the first discovery of a planet from Turkey,” he said.
The number of planets in binary star systems increased to 22 with new Discovery. Selam said the two were “gas giants” or giant planets composed mainly of hydrogen and helium, like Jupiter and Saturn. “So there is no chance of find signs of life there”, he added. He said one of the planets complete a one-year orbit in 43 days and the other in 1,800 days.
Kepler-451 is composed of a dwarf and a sub-dwarf star which respectively have surface temperatures of about 2,580 and 29,000 centigrade. “One of the components of a binary star system is a dying star. find planets in such systems give us an opportunity on building on the theories on these systems. You can’t find planets in general in such systems. It is therefore an exciting discovery for the scientist community“said Selam.
Turkish scientists work also updated the orbital period of the previously discovered planet at 406 days. This planet, discovered in 2015, has similar characteristics in terms of its mass, with newly discovered planets. The three planets are named Kepler451b, Kepler451c and Kepler451d.
