What are the scentific terms and the common names used to describe a solar system in which there are 2 suns.?

Question

Are there solar systems which are composed of two stars, or 2 "suns" instead of one? What are the terms, scientific or common, used to describe such systems? And is it possible for such systems to have planets ? Could those planets be revolving around both suns, and does such case, if it is possible, have a scientific term to describe it?

Answer 1

The term used for solar sytem with two suns is "Binary Solar System". The average solar system is binary (has two suns) and has a dwarf that orbits back and forth or around the two suns. Our solar system is average in both regards.

A dwarf is a label we've given to a celestial object that is a cross between a star and a planet. Our solar systems dwarf is sometimes referred to as Planet X. Its orbit around the two suns takes approximately 3600-3700 years to complete one cycle.

An even more basic question concerns whether or not planets could actually form in such systems. Our knowledge of how the planets formed in our solar system is far from complete, however we know that they formed through the gradual accumulation of smaller objects colliding with each other over periods of millions of years. A nearby massive object can disrupt this process; indeed, the asteroid belt in our solar system is widely thought to be a planet that was unable to form as a result of Jupiter's gravity. We don't have enough knowledge of this process to determine just how much the presence of a companion star can disrupt the formation of planets over an entire system; the best we can do right now is try to see if we can find any planets that might exist within such systems, and work from that point.

Among the more than 100 planets outside the solar system that have now been identified, a handful are indeed within double-star systems. The first-known such planet was independently discovered by two teams of astronomers (Geoff Marcy and Paul Butler in California; Bill Cochran and Artie Hatzes in Texas) and announced in 1996. It orbits around one of the components of 16 Cygni, a system comprising two stars each of which is almost identical to our sun, and now visible low in our northeastern sky during the pre-dawn hours. The two stars of the 16 Cygni system are so far apart, however -- a thousand times the distance between the Earth and the sun, with an orbital period of perhaps thirty thousand years -- that from a gravitational perspective they can be treated as single stars. Until recently, similar statements could be made about the handful of other planets that have been found in double-star systems.

In 2002, however, the Texas team announced their discovery of a planet orbiting around Gamma Cephei, a moderately bright star located near Polaris and currently visible in our northwestern sky during the evening hours. The Gamma Cephei system comprises a primary star that is somewhat larger than our sun, together with a smaller companion star that's about half the sun's size orbiting the primary at the approximate distance of the planet Uranus in our system. The planet appears to be about twice the size of Jupiter, and orbits the primary star every 2 1/2 years in an orbit that corresponds to that of the asteroid belt in our solar system.

The existence of this planet in the Gamma Cephei system -- which is not dramatically different in terms of gravitational influences from what one would encounter in the Alpha Centauri system -- suggests that planets can indeed form, and exist in stable orbits, within double-star systems. As our techniques improve over the coming years hopefully other planets in such systems can be detected, which will aid us in understanding the process of planet formation as well as give stronger indications of the number of planets in the galaxy.

Answer 2

The term I've heard for these systems are binary star systems...

I think they can have planets and I believe they orbit both stars collectively.

Look here for more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_star