Journal
NATURE
Volume 481, Issue 7382, Pages 475-U85Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/nature10768
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Funding
- NASA's Science Mission Directorate
- Kepler Participating Scientist Program
- NSF
- NASA
- STScI
- European Research Council under the European Community
- Research Council of KU Leuven
- FAS Science Division Research Computing Group at Harvard University
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
- Division Of Astronomical Sciences [1109928] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Division Of Astronomical Sciences
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien [1007992] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Most Sun-like stars in the Galaxy reside in gravitationally bound pairs of stars(1,2) (binaries). Although long anticipated(3-8), the existence of a 'circumbinary planet' orbiting such a pair of normal stars was not definitively established until the discovery(9) of the planet transiting (that is, passing in front of) Kepler-16. Questions remained, however, about the prevalence of circumbinary planets and their range of orbital and physical properties. Here we report two additional transiting circumbinary planets: Kepler-34 (AB)b and Kepler-35 (AB)b, referred to here as Kepler-34 b and Kepler-35 b, respectively. Each is a low-density gas-giant planet on an orbit closely aligned with that of its parent stars. Kepler-34 b orbits two Sun-like stars every 289 days, whereas Kepler-35 b orbits a pair of smaller stars (89% and 81% of the Sun's mass) every 131 days. The planets experience large multi-periodic variations in incident stellar radiation arising from the orbital motion of the stars. The observed rate of circumbinary planets in our sample implies that more than similar to 1% of close binary stars have giant planets in nearly coplanar orbits, yielding a Galactic population of at least several million.
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