A rendering shows a white dwarf, similar to the sun.

(Illustration/Mark Garlick, University College London)

Astronomers said Monday they have found hints of a two-star planetary system that closely resembles Tatooine, the Star Wars home of Luke Skywalker.

Like the fictional Tatooine, rocky debris is orbiting two stars — a white and a brown dwarf — in a system called SDSS 1557 , according to a statement by the University College London.

The study, published Monday in the March edition of and funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council and the European Research Council, notes that the discovery is "remarkable because the debris appears to be rocky and suggests that terrestrial planets like Tatooine – Luke Skywalker’s home world in Star Wars – might exist in the system."

"To date, all exoplanets discovered in orbit around double stars are gas giants, similar to Jupiter, and are thought to form in the icy regions of their systems," according to the statement.

The lead author, Dr. Jay Farihi of UCL, said finding debris surrounding two stars is difficult to come by.

"Building rocky planets around two suns is a challenge because the gravity of both stars can push and pull tremendously, preventing bits of rock and dust from sticking together and growing into full-fledged planets," he said. "With the discovery of asteroid debris in the SDSS 1557 system, we see clear signatures of rocky planet assembly via large asteroids that formed, helping us understand how rocky exoplanets are made in double star systems."

The authors say the discovery came as a surprise because they long considered the white dwarf to be a single star. It wasn't until co-authorDr. Steven Parsons of the University of Valparaíso and the University of Sheffield, an expert in double star or binary systems, detected the tell-tale signs.

"We know of thousands of binaries similar to SDSS 1557 but this is the first time we've seen asteroid debris and pollution. The brown dwarf was effectively hidden by the dust until we looked with the right instruments," Parsons said. "But when we observed SDSS 1557 in detail, we recognized the brown dwarf's subtle gravitational pull on the white dwarf."

The next step for the scientists will be to get another look at the system through the Hubble Space Telescope to "conclusively show the dust is made of rock rather than ice."