Scientists from Ankara University in the Turkish capital made it to the annals of Turkish astronomy with the discovery of two planets in the Kepler-451 binary star system, some 1,336 light-years away from Earth. This is the second such discovery by Turkish scientists.
Professor Selim Osman Selam, one of the scientists from the university’s Department of Astronomy and Space Sciences, said the planets are almost twice the size of Jupiter’s mass. Their findings were recently published in an international astronomy journal.
Researchers tapped two telescopes, one with a diameter of 80 centimeters (31.49 inches) located at Ankara University’s Kreiken Observatory and Istanbul University’s telescope in the western province of Çanakkale. They also employed 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 eclipse timing variations and the system where the planets were discovered had another planet already discovered. "They were in a stable orbit," he added. "It is a difficult task to find planets in binary star systems. It is actually the first time Turkish scientists made such a discovery. Researchers at Ankara University were already behind the first planet discovery from Turkey," he said.
The number of planets in binary star systems rose to 22 with new discovery. Selam said both were "gas giants" or giant planets composed mainly of hydrogen and helium, like Jupiter and Saturn. "Thus, there is no chance of finding signs of life there," he added. He said one of the planets completes a one-year orbit in 43 days and the other in 1,800 days.
Kepler-451 is comprised of a dwarf and subdwarf 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. Finding planets in such systems gives us an opportunity on building upon theories on those systems. You cannot find planets in general in such systems. So, this is an exciting discovery for the scientific community," Selam said.
The Turkish scientists’ work also updated the orbital period of the previously discovered planet to 406 days. That planet, discovered in 2015, has similar characteristics in terms of its mass, with the newly discovered planets. The three planets are named Kepler451b, Kepler451c and Kepler451d.
