One of the first planets to be mentioned in Star Wars is Tatooine. This planet was the home of the protagonist from the original trilogy, Luke Skywalker. In the story, Tatooine is an arid, desert planet on which life is possible. For a long time, it was believed that such planets did not exist, but the analysis of data from telescopes suggests otherwise.
According to NASA’s space agency, Tatooine already exists in the real universe. The planet discovered by the Kepler telescope is codenamed Kepler-16b. Its size is comparable to the size of Saturn, and it is located at a distance of about 200 light-years from Earth. It is noteworthy that the planet has two stars at once, so most likely the sunsets on it look the same as they were shown in the film. Moreover, scientists are not yet sure that this planet is uninhabited.
The search for life on other planets is one of the main goals of astronomy today. NASA’s current programs are looking for life on Mars and other planets. For further research, it is planned to commission such space telescopes as the Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and James Webb, whose main purpose will be to search for life on other planets.
Doug Hudgins, a scientist for the exoplanet search program at NASA, noted that the movie Star Wars became so popular precisely because it showed what life might look like in other systems. The researcher also said that he and his colleagues continue to study the universe and the existence of other planets from Star Wars may become an obvious reality in the near future.
