How many suns does tatooine have

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Donate Now. The new planet, known as Kepler b, takes days to orbit its parent stars. Science indicates that Tatooine is much more likely to orbit both stars than one of them according to the way it is depicted in the movies. Astronomers often call circumbinary planets that orbit around two stars "Tatooines" - it probably seems obvious to many that the special effects of the two suns showing them both the same size prove that Tatooine almost certainly orbits around both of its suns.

In fact, If George Lucas himself told me Tatooine orbits only one of its suns and the other one is much farther away, I would say "Phooey, you're wrong, Tatooine must orbit both its suns as a circumbinary planet". Multiple and binary star systems tend to have a "Hierarchical" structure.

Each additional star or pair of stars in the system usually is separated by much greater distances than the inner stars. There might be 2 stars separated by 1 distance unit and then another star or close pair of stars separated by 20 distance units and maybe an even father star or close pair of stars at distance units, for example.

If a planet orbiting a star or close pair of stars in a system has a stable orbit any other star or pair of stars would have to orbit at least ten times the distance that the planet orbits. In the movies the two suns of Tatooine seem to have the same apparent size and very similar colors.

Similar colors indicate similar temperatures. Basically they appear to be twins with the same sizes, masses, temperatures, and brightness. If they are at the same distance from Tatooine and Tatooine orbits around both of them as a circumbinary planet, that is. The twin suns of Tatooine might be about the same size as the Sun - about , miles in diameter - and orbit each other at about 5,, to 10,, miles distance, about 6. And Tatooine might orbit them at about 1.

I have suggested that the twin suns of Tatooine might be separated by about 6. Two stars with masses similar to Earth's sun orbiting at about five to ten million miles would orbit each other in a period of a few days, I think. Thus as seen from Tatooine the stars would be appear to be separated by about two to four times their diameters every few days. So it would not be very improbable for them to be seen at such an apparent angular separation in several different scenes years apart.

If the twin suns of Tatooine are also twins of Earth's sun, it would be quite probable that the Tatooine system had lasted for the billions of years needed for large multi celled organisms to evolve on Tatooine. And what if Tatooine orbits around one of the suns and the other sun is many times farther away? We might suppose that the closer star orbited by Tatooine is similar to Earth's sun. Thus Tatooine might orbit it about 93,, miles away. If the other sun has to be at least ten times as far as Tatooine for Tatooine to have a stable orbit, then it should be at least ,, miles from the star Tatooine orbits and possibly many times that distance.

If Tatooine orbits at a distance of 93,, miles and the farther sun orbits at a distance of ,, miles from the sun Tatooine orbits, during the Tatooine year the distance between Tatooine and the outer sun will vary between ,, miles and 1,,, miles - if Tatooine orbits in the same plane as the two stars orbit each other, which is to be desired.

Thus the outer sun will be 1. Actually the two orbits will be somewhat elliptical and the difference will be more than that. The effect of the outer sun varying in apparent diameter during a Tatooine year can be reduced until it is no longer noticeable by moving the outer sun farther and farther away from Tatooine. If the outer sun is at least ten times farther from the inner sun than Tatooine is, it will have to have at least ten times the physical diameter of the inner sun to have the same apparent diameter.

But all main sequence stars with similar colors and spectral types have similar diameters. If the inner sun of Tatooine is a nice main sequence dwarf star of luminosity class V that can shine with reasonably steady brightness for the billions of years needed for multi celled life to evolve on Tatooine, the outer sun with a similar temperature but ten times the diameter must not be a main sequence star.

It must have been at least a little more massive originally than the inner sun and evolved more rapidly and left the main sequence, swelling up into a sub giant star of luminosity class IV, or a giant star of Luminosity class III, or a bright giant of luminosity class II, or a supergiant of luminosity classes Ia or Ib.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community space. Karl Tate. Offworlders erected various cities in the desert, and colonists who decided to stay on the planet built moisture farms.

The B'omarr Order on Tatooine kept their disembodied brains floating in jars that hung below their spider-like droid bodies, and built a monastery on the planet which would eventually come under the ownership of Jabba Desilijic Tiure as his palace.

Most wealth eventually found its way into the city of Mos Espa , with most of it procured from gambling and off-world trade, especially through the lucrative black market. The influx of commercial ventures fueled Mos Espa's growth, eventually securing its regional importance as a hub of economic and financial activity.

With high tariffs imposed by the Hutts, some believed themselves able to escape paying them by doing business in the planet's de facto capital, however often found themselves scammed and broke if not through gambling, through simple bad luck.

In the last decades of the Galactic Republic , Tatooine was home to a human slave named Shmi Skywalker and her son Anakin. The Skywalkers befriended Amidala's party, and the young slave ended up participating in a podrace to help his new friends obtain a new T hyperdrive generator for their damaged starship.

After discovering that Anakin Skywalker would make an exceptional recruit for the Jedi Order, Master Qui-Gon Jinn managed to obtain his freedom from the junk dealer Watto in the city of Mos Espa, and the Queen's party left Tatooine with the boy.

After participating in numerous adventures, including the Invasion of Naboo, the former Tatooinian slave joined the Jedi Order under Kenobi's tutelage. Ten years later, Tatooine hosted another major event in the saga of the Skywalker family.

Anakin Skywalker, now a gifted but unruly Jedi student, sensed that his mother, who had stayed on Tatooine and gotten married , was in terrible pain. Skywalker returned to the desert world in the company of Amidala, who was now a senator of the Republic and the young Jedi's secret lover. It transpired that Shmi Skywalker had been captured by Tusken Raiders and was detained in one of their camps.

When Skywalker finally discovered his mother's location, he arrived too late, and she died in his arms from the consequences of the Tuskens' mistreatment of her. Enraged, the young Jedi slaughtered the entire Tusken tribe. That act of brutality, which took place on Tatooine, resulted in the native Tusken Raiders believing Anakin to be a vengeful demon spirit, and later had serious consequences as the first step towards Anakin Skywalker's fall from grace.

Shortly after the incident, the Clone Wars broke out, and the tortured Tatooinian Jedi became a major player of the pan-galactic conflict. Three years after the start of the war, Skywalker fell to the dark side and joined the Sith , old adversaries of the Jedi who had long planned to take over the galaxy.

The Galactic Empire , a new regime established to replace the Republic, started to hunt all Jedi. Skywalker's former master Obi-Wan Kenobi went into hiding on Tatooine, bringing the infant son of the fallen Jedi with him. On the desert expanses of Tatooine, Kenobi hoped that he could keep young Luke from his father's evil influence.

Kenobi entrusted the boy [43] to Shmi's stepson, [40] Owen Lars , and his wife Beru. In the years following Emperor Palpatine's formation of his New Order, the Great Drought of Tatooine scorched the world's surface, impoverishing the many moisture farmers of a reliable source of income to procure food and other basic supplies.

The situation was not helped by Jabba's thugs collecting "water taxes" from the many towns and isolated settlements across the planet, often resorting to threats and brute force to acquire enough water for the crime lord. With Obi-Wan Kenobi witnessing the suffering of the population, he disabled the weapons of the thugs, allowing the populace to chase them off. Later, a young Luke Skywalker attempted to confront the thugs, but was ultimately rescued by Obi-Wan after falling unconscious in a brief scuffle.

With the legacy of the Jedi safe, Obi-Wan vowed never to return to town, while a week later the drought finally ended, and Jabba vowed revenge on the man who had stolen his water, to no avail. In addition, the Empire's rise prompted the Hutts to revise their oftentimes shady business schemes, resulting in a transfer of regional wealth and influence from Mos Espa to Mos Eisley , prompting the slow economic decline of Mos Espa.

Ezra traveled with the C1-series astromech droid Chopper to Tatooine. After being lost in the desert, Ezra and Chopper were rescued by Kenobi, who revealed Maul's deception. Kenobi then instructed the two rebels to return to Atollon while he defeated and fatally wounded Maul in combat. With the droids carrying the technical readouts to the battle station, a task force was sent to the planet in order to capture the two droids.

Upon coming in contact with a Jawa sandcrawler, the two were abducted and later sold to Owen Lars of the Lars moisture farm , with R2 being chosen after another astromech droid, R5-D4 broke down. Being saved by Kenobi after he imitated the cry of a krayt dragon, Luke Skywalker learned that he was a Jedi while Kenobi offered to train him. Refusing and heading home, Skywalker came across the remains of the sandcrawler that originally sold the two droids to his family.

Realizing that it was the work of Imperial forces and that they may have traced the droids back to his house, Luke rushed back only to find the moisture farm burned to the ground, with the charred remains of his aunt and uncle laying outside in the sun.

Agreeing to go with Ben Kenobi to Mos Eisley, they hired the services of smuggler Han Solo and his partner, Chewbacca to transport them offworld to Alderaan. Barely escaping an intense firefight with multiple sandtroopers , the two escaped Tatooine and several Star Destroyers into hyperspace. He and his followers were ultimately defeated by a gang of mercenaries located on-world.

Shortly after the Battle of Yavin, a shuttle with emissaries in the employ of Jabba the Hutt, meant to negotiate a deal to provide support to the Empire at Weapons Factory Alpha on Cymoon 1 , was intercepted by the Alliance to Restore the Republic , and a strike team consisting of Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Leia Organa proceeded to the factory, infiltrating and destroying it.

The negotiations having failed, Darth Vader returned to Tatooine to negotiate the deal with Jabba in person.