NASA discovers Tatooine

In a press conference today that included John Knoll, Visual Effects Supervisor from Industrial Light and Magic, NASA announced the discovery of a planet (named Kepler 16b) orbiting a binary star system.

This is the first time an exo planet has been found around such a system, and in a stable orbit!

While it may be a first for NASA, such a planetary system has long been imagined, and one of the first places something like this was seen by a large number of the public was in a little film called Star Wars.  The planet was Tatooine, home of Luke Skywalker.

Here is a NY Times article discussing the find (with animation).