Imagine starting a summer job and within seventy-two hours you find something that has been hidden in the vastness of space for billions of years. For most teenagers, summer internships involve writing papers or drinking coffee, but 17-year-old Wolf Cukier spent his summer of 2019 in a very different way. While working at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, he sat in front of his computer looking at data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, also known as TESS. When his first week is over, he discovers a real-life version of the fictional planet Tatooine.This is not a sudden revelation of a cinematic “aha” moment, but the result of diligent effort that forms the core of all scientific processes. Cukier’s task was to analyze light curves—graphs that describe fluctuations in the brightness of associated stars. A decrease in brightness usually means there is something blocking a significant amount of light between the observer and the subject. While others might only notice the data points and lines on the graph, Cukier discovered that the anomaly in question occurred at an unusual point in time, marking the beginning of the discovery of TOI-1338 b.Disturbing the dance of the starsThe difficulty of this observation is exacerbated by the peculiarities of the system itself. Typically, planets orbit a star, creating predictable shadow cycles. In the case of TOI-1338 b, we have a binary orbiting planet – a planet orbiting two suns. Since the motion of the two suns is itself cyclical, it causes the timing of the observed transits to vary.As detailed in the research paper titled TOI-1338: TESS’s first transit around a binary planet, The system is located about 1,300 light-years away in the constellation Pisces. The two central stars are of different sizes; one is about 10 percent more massive than our Sun, while the other is cooler and dimmer. The planet itself is a massive one, about seven times the size of Earth. Because it orbits two stars, its transit times and durations are irregular.
The discovery paves the way for the identification of a second planet in the same system, highlighting the key role of human observation in scientific breakthroughs. Representative image. Image source: Google Gemini
Initially, when Cukier saw the data, he thought it might be a solar eclipse, as expected in a double star. However, closer inspection reveals anomalies in the periodogram. Rather than labeling the phenomenon a glitch, Cukier stuck to scientific process and highlighted the “incorrect” drop. In doing so, he managed to assemble a large group of researchers from multiple organizations to back up his findings, which proved to be a clear win for astute students in a field that requires rigorous proofs.Scientific discoveries don’t stop thereTOI-1338 b was not a one-time discovery that would make the news and then be forgotten. A teenager’s accidental discovery led to many more important discoveries in the future. The initial easy identification of planets led to increased vigilance among scientists in the field. After years of searching, researchers have discovered another planet in the same system and published their findings in Natural Astronomy.The second planet, known as TOI-1338 c or BEBOP-1c, was discovered using radial velocity techniques. It requires measuring small changes in the star’s speed due to the gravitational pull exerted by planets orbiting the star. Finding a second planet in such a binary structure is extremely rare, making the system an excellent testbed for studying planet formation in such complex systems.This is a milestone moment for NASA. It proves that the TESS mission is able to find the most difficult planet types, even if the data looks messy or irregular. It’s also a powerful reminder that in the age of artificial intelligence, human attention still matters. Computers are good at following rules, but humans are better at noticing when rules are broken.In this day and age, it remains one of the best discoveries in science due to its relevance to history and today’s world. The Earth orbited two stars for billions of years without anyone noticing, until a teenager decided to study an anomaly in the fluctuations of light that exceeded expectations. There’s a lesson here for everyone: the biggest changes begin when we focus on events that happen at the wrong time.
