More than 1,000 extrasolar planets have been identified by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, out of which a handful of them orbit binary star systems.

Although numerous of them are the gas giants the size of gas giants like Neptune, one class of planet that appears to be missing so far is a small rocky world in a binary star system, a real life Tatooine from Star Wars.

To have a real-life Tatooine, a small rocky planet is required to form in the habitable zone of a binary system. However, the only planets that have been detected in binary systems so far are gas giants, and many of them are far outside the habitable zone of their parent stars.

Although, many doubt that these worlds can form, a pair of astrophysicists has released findings that showed that rocky planets could form around twin suns.

Ben Bromley of the University of Utah and Scott Kenyon of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory submitted a paper to the Astrophysical Journal claiming that Tatooine could be out there somewhere.

The paper, titled ‘Planet formation around binary stars: Tatooine made easy’ is filled with mathematical calculations that describe the potential orbits of small protoplanetary chunks known as ‘planetesimals’.

According to the authors of the paper, it is possible for planetesimals to follow a matching oval-shaped orbit caused by the cyclic tugging of gravity from the two central stars. This should allow small rocky planets to form, something like Tatooine in the habitable zone of stars without getting blasted by one if its neighbors.

Bromley said, “We took our sweet numerical time to show that the ride around a pair of stars can be just as smooth as around one. The 'made easy' part is really saying the same recipe that works around the sun will work around Tatooine's host stars”.