Gazing Up At A Double Sun IRA FLATOW, HOST: If you're headed
outside this Labor Day weekend, besides seeing that second blue
moon of the month, just look up at the sky, would you believe
that about half of those stars you see are actually two stars or
more, the kind of double star system that's quite common? And
this week, astronomers reported on the discovery of a planetary
system orbiting such a binary star, two planets orbiting two
suns. It's called Kepler-47 after the Kepler planet-hunting
mission that spotted it. Joining me now to talk about the find
is Jerome Orosz. He is the lead author on the paper of the
discovery published this week in the journal Science. He's
associate professor of astronomy at San Diego University.
Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY. DR. JEROME OROSZ: Thank you for
having me. FLATOW: When you say two planets orbiting a pair of
stars, a lot of people might imagine some kind of figure-eight,
wacky pattern that's going on here. OROSZ: Yes. That's quite
common, and unfortunately, that's not r