Post by Texas Tech Research & Innovation

A team of astronomers, including Texas Tech Physics & Astronomy Assistant Professor Michael Fausnaugh, has helped identify a distant exoplanet using an innovative observational approach with NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).   By analyzing archived TESS data, the researchers detected Gaia23bra, a super Jupiter located nearly 40,000 light-years from Earth through gravitational microlensing. This is a technique that allows astronomers to find planets orbiting far from their host stars. The discovery demonstrates a new use for TESS beyond its traditional planet-hunting method and opens the door to finding more planetary systems that resemble our own. The team's findings are scheduled to be published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, marking another step forward in expanding our understanding of planets beyond our solar system.   Read more: https://lnkd.in/gq_ZRjxa Texas Tech University - College of Arts & Sciences