MORE than a thousand planets reminiscent of Tatooine – Luke Skywalker’s hypnotic world with multiple suns in Star Wars – could be lurking in our galactic neighbourhood. That is the conclusion of astronomers who have come up with a simple explanation for the genesis of a recently discovered, perplexing giant planet in a nearby triple star system.
In July, Maciej Konacki, then at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and now at the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center in Torun, Poland, reported finding a planet inside a triple star system called HD 188753, about 150 light years from Earth.
The planet is…
