What the transit method has Found

        The method that I described last week is the transit method of a single star system. However, there are binary star systems in which transits can occur. There are projects one known as the TEP network that is trying to observe a transit of a planet in this type of star systems.  They can measure this transit because the planet would transit in the plane of the star system. This means that the planet would transit both components. When this transit occurs there can be a variety of shapes on the transit graphs they are more complex than just the one star system.  This arises because the planet is moving around both of the stars, but the stars are moving around each other too.  There are two examples of the type of graphs one can get from the transition of the binary star system. 

Figure obtained from: http://www.iac.es/proyecto/tep/transitmet.html

        The first graph is of the normal transit of binary systems. It has two dips this is the transit of each star individually and are separated by a few hours. The second graph is a single long transit when the planet transits the two stars at once. These are just two of the configurations that can occur with two star binary systems. There are many other possibilities of the transit of planets around these binary star systems. one of the discoveries the binary star system was found by Kepler. Kepler-16 is a binary star system. The two stars that make up the binary system are dwarf stars, one is a class K orange dwarf and the second is a class M red dwarf. The planet that was found to orbit these two stars is a gas giant it is slightly smaller than Saturn and completes a nearly circular orbit every 228.8 days.  This is just one of the many exo-planets the Kepler has found.  

Information obtained from:

http://scienceblogs.com/SETI/2011/09/kepler-16_exoplanets_around_bi.php

http://www.iac.es/proyecto/tep/transitmet.html