TESS’s planet orbiting 2 stars
Astronomers announced this month (November 10, 2021) that the space-based TESS planet-hunter (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) has found its first exoplanet orbiting two stars. It’s a gas giant planet, nearly precisely the identical dimension as our solar system’s largest world, Jupiter. But it’s about 3 times extra large than Jupiter. And it’s 818 light-years from Earth, in distinction to Jupiter’s distance of lower than a light-hour.
The newly discovered planet known as TIC 172900988b. It orbits its twin host stars in solely 200.5 Earth-days (Jupiter takes 12 Earth-years to orbit our sun as soon as). The discovery is critical to scientists as a result of it demonstrated it was potential to detect TIC 172900988b, a circumbinary star, with a restricted quantity of information. The scientists noticed because the planet transited its main star, then transited its secondary star 5 days later. The two stars underwent an eclipse of one another, too, over a 20-day orbit. The scientists mentioned in a statement:
Previous detections of circumbinary planets required observing three transits which was not potential within the brief statement window.
Shades of Tatooine
And, in fact, the invention is critical to sci-fi followers, too. It’s paying homage to the basic (and totally surprising, on the time) first view of Tatooine, the fictional planet with two suns first glimpsed within the 1977 movie Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope . Now, astronomers are discovering real-life exoplanets that actually do orbit two stars. They’re often known as circumbinary planets. So far, 14 circumbinary planetary systems have been found.
TIC 172900988b is a primary for TESS, which was launched in April 2018 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The main mission phase for TESS resulted in April 2020, after the satellite had detected some 2,600+ exoplanets. The discovery of a circumbinary planet by TESS reveals this planet-hunter nonetheless has extra worlds to seek out!
The TESS discovery includes a new technique developed partly by scientists from the Planetary Science Institute, a nonprofit group based in 1972, based mostly in Tucson, Arizona, and devoted to solar system exploration. Veselin B. Kostov of the SETI Institute – a research-based nonprofit, based mostly in Mountain View, California – led the brand new examine.
The Astronomical Journal published a brand new peer-reviewed paper detailing the invention on November 10. It can also be available as a preprint on arXiv.
TESS’s planet orbiting 2 stars
So this new planet is the TESS planet-hunter’s first circumbinary world. During its main mission phase, TESS divided the sky into 26 “sectors” (13 within the Northern Hemisphere and 13 within the Southern Hemisphere). The satellite is in a extremely elliptical 13.7-day orbit round Earth. So it noticed every sector for 2 Earth-orbits, or about 27 days, every to watch the complete sky.
TESS noticed the brand new circumbinary planet in a single sector (Sector 21). Upon evaluation, scientists might see that the light curve confirmed two transits of the planet, one in entrance of every star, throughout the identical conjunction. Kostov stated:
The incidence of a number of closely-spaced transits throughout one orbit is a singular statement signature of transiting circumbinary planets. This is a geometrical phenomenon that gives a brand new planet detection technique. The discovery of TIC 172900988b is the primary demonstration that the strategy works.
Nader Haghighipour of the Planetary Science Institute echoed that assertion, saying:
Our group was in a position to present that regardless of its brief window of statement, it’s nonetheless potential to make use of TESS to detect circumbinary planets. The new planet is the proof of the validity, applicability and success of our invented method. This discovery demonstrates that our new method works and can be capable of discover many extra planets.
A brand new method to find circumbinary planets
The most typical technique for locating circumbinary planets is transit photometry. It measures how a lot a star dims when a planet transits in entrance of it, as seen from Earth. At least three transits are required to find out the orbit of a planet. But this statement isn’t as simple in a double-star system, as a result of the transits will happen at completely different intervals over the identical star. As Haghighipour defined:
Detecting circumbinary planets is way more sophisticated than detecting planets orbiting single stars. The most promising method for detecting circumbinary planets is transit photometry, which measures drops in starlight attributable to these planets whose orbits are oriented in space such that they periodically move between their stars and the telescope. In this method, the measurements of the lower within the depth of the sunshine of a star is used to deduce the existence of a planet.
To exactly decide the orbit of the planet, at the least three transit occasions are required. This turns into sophisticated when a planet orbits a double-star system as a result of transits is not going to occur with identical interval over the identical star. The planet might transit one star after which transit the opposite earlier than transiting the primary star once more, and so forth.
Only two transits wanted
Unlike its predecessor, Kepler, TESS isn’t actually fitted to discovering circumbinary planets. This is because of the truth that to catch such transits, the telescope should observe the binary star system for a very long time. Those transits take longer to observe for the reason that orbital interval of the planets are considerably longer than for single stars. And TESS observes one a part of the sky for under 27 days, earlier than transferring to the subsequent one.
So, usually, TESS can see solely two transits on the most, not three. But now, with the brand new method, astronomers say they will decide the existence of the planet(s) with solely two transits.
TESS’s main mission ended on July 4, 2020, and it’s now in an prolonged mission phase. It continues to seek out extensively numerous planets, starting from small, rocky worlds to large planets.
Bottom line: NASA’s TESS mission has simply discovered its first planet orbiting two stars – a Jupiter-sized world – utilizing a newly-developed method for detecting circumbinary planets.
Source: TIC 172900988: A Transiting Circumbinary Planet Detected in One Sector of TESS Data
