Gen Z’s intergalactic takeover has begun.
On Monday, NASA announced that its Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which captures images to be uploaded to the Planet Hunters TESS citizen science project, had evidence of a new planet. The first circumbinary planet captured by TESS, “TOI 1338 b” as it is now known orbits two stars in the constellation Pictor — approximately 1,300 light-year away from Earth.
The person responsible for the new discovery? 17-year-old intern Wolf Cukier.
In summer 2019, Cukier was tasked with examining “variations in star brightness” in images captured by TESS. In a NASA press release, Goddard researcher Veselin Kostov explained that the human eye is better equipped than an algorithm when it comes to detecting subtle changes and patterns — so, a perfect job for a first-week intern.
“I was looking through the data for everything the volunteers had flagged as an eclipsing binary, a system where two stars circle around each other and from our view eclipse each other every orbit,” Cukier said. “About three days into my internship, I saw a signal from a system called TOI 1338. At first I thought it was a stellar eclipse, but the timing was wrong. It turned out to be a planet.”
According to NASA, TOI 1338 b is roughly 6.9 times larger than Earth, or “between the sizes of Neptune and Saturn.” Due to its positioning around the two stars it orbits, TOI 1338 b experiences regular solar eclipses. By NASA’s estimates, the planet is in a stable orbit for at least the next 10 million years.
“TESS is expected to observe hundreds of thousands of eclipsing binaries during its initial two-year mission, so many more of these circumbinary planets should be waiting for discovery,” the press release continues. How many of those will be discovered by interns remains to be seen.
Cukier co-authored a paper on the discovery, which is currently under review by an unnamed scientific journal. In an interview with ABC News, Cukier, now a senior in high school, confirmed he is looking for more planets.
