Overview
- The peer‑reviewed study, published Monday in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, reports 27 candidate circumbinary planets after analyzing 1,590 eclipsing binaries observed by NASA’s TESS.
- Researchers tracked tiny shifts in when the two stars eclipse each other, using a slow wobble in the binary orbit to spot the tug of an unseen companion without needing a planet to pass in front of a star.
- All of the objects are still candidates and need follow‑up from ground telescopes that can measure slight changes in the host stars’ speeds to confirm whether they are planets.
- Early estimates place the candidates between about 12 Earth masses and roughly 10 Jupiter masses and at distances of around 650 to 18,000 light‑years.
- The team found candidates in about 2% of the systems studied, suggesting that larger sky surveys could uncover thousands more two‑sun worlds that transit‑based searches miss.