An artistic hypothetical picture of four planets located within the system of the star TOI-1233.
Two American high school students, ages 16 and 18, have discovered four exoplanets belonging to the same primary star. Their mentor called it a “jackpot” and the discovery was featured in The Astronomical Journal.
As part of its Student Research Mentoring Program, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics pays the teenagers for four hours of work per week. .
The four planets are located in the system of the star TOI-1233 (also known as HD108236), which astronomers say is the brightest star ever discovered in a star about the size of the Sun and of similar temperature, about 200 light-years from our solar system.
The discovery of four transiting planets around it at once makes this star system ideal for study by NASA’s soon-to-be-launched James Webb Space Telescope.
The two teenagers discovered the four planets from Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) data combined with data from ground-based telescopes.
Transiting planets are planets that temporarily block their host star (their “sun”) each Time they pass between it and Earth, causing a change in light. Such planets can be found by analyzing the changes in starlight brightness from data from telescopes such as TESS.
One of these four planets is a rocky planet like Earth that orbits its host star every four days; the other three are gaseous planets like Neptune that orbit its host star every 6, 14, and 19.5 days, respectively.
Because of their proximity to their host stars, the surface temperatures of these planets can reach about 700 to 1500 degrees Fahrenheit and are unlikely to host Life. But because of their short orbits, they are easier to spot because of the higher frequency of transits.
Another team has found a fifth planet in the star system – orbiting its host star every 29 days – from data from the European Space Agency’s Exoplanet Characterization Observation Satellite (CHEOPS).
Astronomers believe that there are likely other planets in the habitable zone farther away from the host star, TOI-1233, on which liquid water may be present. Scientists believe the discovery of this star system could help advance the understanding of how planets are born and develop.
Discovering a multi-planet system is like hitting the jackpot,” said Tansu Daylan, a postdoctoral fellow at MIT who is mentoring the two high school students. To study the atmospheres of planets within star systems like the Sun, this system is probably the most ideal one known.”
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