US high school kids discover four exoplanets which are 200 light years away from Earth

Two students from the United States have become the youngest to discover four new exoplanets situated 200-light-years away from Earth. 16-year-old junior Kartik Pinglé and 18-year-old senior Jasmine Wright were part of the Student Research Mentoring Program (SRMP) at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard & Smithsonian, when they made the astonishing discovery. The aim of this program is to select students for Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). After being selected, the students can work with their mentors on a research project that has a duration of one year. 

Exoplanets discovered

The students were directed by astrochemist Clara Sousa-Silva and mentored by Tansu Daylan, a postdoc at the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. As per the press release by Harvard, Sousa-Silva said, “It’s a steep learning curve. By the end of the program, the students can say they’ve done active, state-of-the-art research in astrophysics”. Under the project, the two students studied and analyzed data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. 

The team closely observed TESS Object of Interest (TOI) 1233 which is a bright Sun-like star close to the Solar System. After that, it focussed on spotting any presence of planets that were rotating around the star. For this, they narrowed in on TOI-1233’s light. 

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They finally discovered four exoplanets revolving around TOI 1233. Three of these are identified as the sub-Neptunes. They take between six and 19.5 days to orbit around TOI-1233. The fourth planet has been described as a super-Earth due to its large size and rocky topography. 

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Talking about his experience, Wright said, “I was very excited and very shocked”. He added, “We knew this was the goal of Daylan’s research, but to actually find a multiplanetary system, and be part of the discovering team, was really cool”. Their mentor, Daylan said, “Our species has long been contemplating planets beyond our solar system and with multi-planetary systems, you’re kind of hitting the jackpot”. He added, “The planets originated from the same disk of matter around the same star, but they ended up being different planets with different atmospheres and different climates due to their different orbits. So, we would like to understand the fundamental processes of planet formation and evolution using this planetary system”.

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(Image Credits: Pixabay)