Sharing Two Suns is a photograph by Movie Poster Prints which was uploaded on February 23rd, 2013.
Title
Sharing Two Suns
Artist
Movie Poster Prints
Medium
Photograph
Description
Sharing the Light of Two Suns
This artist's concept illustrates Kepler-47, the first transiting circumbinary system -- multiple planets orbiting two suns � 4,900 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Cygnus. The system was detected by NASA's Kepler space telescope, which measures minisucule changes in the brightness of more than 150,000 stars to search for planets that pass in front of or 'transit' their host star.
As seen from our vantage point on Earth, the two orbiting stars regularly eclipse each other every 7.5 days. One star is similar to the sun in size, but only 84 percent as bright. The second star is diminutive, measuring only one-third the size of the sun and less than one percent as bright.
Two planets also eclipse, or transit, the host stars. The inner planet, Kepler-47b, orbits the pair of stars in less than 50 days. At three times the radius of Earth, it is the smallest known transiting circumbinary planet.
Seen in the foreground, the outer planet, Kepler-47c, orbits its host pair every 303 days, placing it in the so-called "habitable zone," the region in a planetary system where liquid water might exist on the surface of a planet. While not a world hospitable for life, Kepler-47c is thought to be a gaseous giant, slightly larger than Neptune, where an atmosphere of thick bright water-vapor clouds might exist.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle
Uploaded
February 23rd, 2013
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Comments (9)
Movie Poster Prints
Thank you John for featuring this image in your great group Images That Excite You -Dave
John Bailey
Congratulations on being featured in the Fine Art America Group "Images That Excite You!"
Movie Poster Prints
Thank you Omaste for featuring this image in your great group Social Media Marketers - Dave
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