Our solar system’s single star may be a rarity in the universe
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.029425
Forbes : Launched in 2009, NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has been seeking Earth-like planets orbiting other stars. It is able to detect potential candidates by watching for a temporary dip in brightness of the host star as the object passes between it and the spacecraft. After surveying more than 150 000 stars, the Kepler team identified 129 objects of interest. Although the researchers expected that some 10% to 20% of the objects would not end up being planets, they found that the number was actually much higher. In a paper published on the arXiv eprint server, they report that 52% of the candidates were not planets but instead eclipsing binary stars. Three candidates were brown dwarfs. Although our solar-system arrangement has just one star, multiple-star systems may actually be more common in the rest of the universe.
