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A pair of high school students are praised for making a major astronomical discovery after identifying four new planets orbiting a star about 200 light years from Earth.
What are the details?
The two students, Kartik Pinglé, 16, and Jasmine Wright, 18, both schooled in Massachusetts, were excited to be part of the discovery and wrote about it in a peer-reviewed article published by Astronomical. . Newspaper last week.
The discovery could make them the youngest astronomers to make such an important discovery yet, according to a news release from the Center for Astrophysics, a collaboration between Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution.
The students made their discovery through CFA’s Student Research Mentoring Program, an initiative that pairs students interested in research with real-world scientists who then embark on a one-year project together.
As part of the program, high school students were selected to work alongside Tansu Daylan, a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, analyzing data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a satellite that orbits the Earth and monitors shining stars nearby. in the hope of discovering new planets.
The team focused on a star close to the Sun called the object of interest TESS 1233 to perceive whether or not the planets were orbiting around it.
“We were looking to see changes in light over time,” Pinglé explained of the research. “The idea being that if the planet passes through the star, or passes in front of it, it [periodically] cover the star and decrease its luminosity. “
While probing the star, the students had hoped to discover at least one planet, but to their surprise, they ended up finding four.
“I was very excited and very shocked,” Wright said of the discovery. “We knew that was the point of Daylan’s research, but finding a multiplanetary system and being part of the discovery team was really cool.”
According to the research paper, the three outer planets are considered “sub-Neptunes,” or gas planets smaller but similar to the planet of the same name in our solar system, while the innermost planet is considered one. “Super-Earth” because of its large size and rocky nature.
What else?
Program director Clara Sousa-Silva noted that Pinglé and Wright’s achievement is rare.
“Although [it] is one of the goals of SRMP, it is very unusual for high school students to be co-authors of newspapers, ”she said in the press release.
Daylan added that it was a “win-win” to work alongside Pinglé and Wright and make a major discovery
“As a researcher, I really enjoy interacting with young brains who are open to experimentation and learning and have minimal bias,” he said. “I also think it’s very beneficial for high school students because they are exposed to cutting-edge research and it quickly prepares them for a career as a researcher.”
According to the press release, Pinglé, who is still only a junior in high school, plans to study applied mathematics or astrophysics after graduating, while Wright has been accepted into a master’s program in astrophysics. of five years at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
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