On January 6 , NASA announced that it had detected anEarth - sized satellite , TOI 700 d , 100 light - years away from Earth that could be open of hosting life . The same mission also moderate to the discovery of a rare major planet with twin Dominicus courtesy of a 17 - year - old medical intern .
AsCNNreports , high schooltime student Wolf Cukier was combing through data collected by NASA ’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite , or TESS , when he acknowledge something unknown about one binary whizz arrangement . The system TOI 1338 consist of two headliner that orb each other once every 15 days . When the small of the two stars passes across the larger one , it ’s get it on as a astral eclipse . But one sign that had been flagged as a stellar occultation was n’t an eclipse at all ; justthree daysinto his internship at NASA ’s Goddard Space Flight Center , Cukier had determine a planet orbit the two stars .
The satellite , since dub TOI 1338 B complex , is like a real - life version of Luke Skywalker ’s home planet Tatooine from the Star Wars movies . It ’s located approximately 1300 light - old age aside in the Pictor configuration and is somewhere between Neptune and Saturn in size . Twin - star planets are rarified , and this mark this first one detected through NASA ’s major planet - hunting TESS mission .
TESS launched in 2018 with the goal of finding new planets outside our own solar organisation . Planets are typically discovered by recording star over meter and looking for free fall in their luminousness that designate give-up the ghost satellite . This system becomes complicated when dealing with binary star system , as dip in light because of a major planet in transit can get confused with an eclipsing star and frailty versa . Without Cukier ’s keen eye , this latest uncovering may have gone undetected .
It may have the same number of stars as Tatooine , but the similarity TOI 1338 b share with the satellite fromStar Warsend there . So far , TOI 700 500 is the only planet discovered by TESS that has a chance of being inhabitable .
[ h / tCNN ]
