Record-Breaking Stellar Trio Discovered by NASA's TESS and AI

NASA Teams Up With AI to Spot a Record-Breaking Stellar Trio

The group has the fastest orbit of any trio of stars ever observed by humans. The universe is full of oddities and formations that range from magnetars to solar systems with four stars. One of those oddities is the stellar trio, where two stars orbit each other and then a third star orbits the other two. A group of professional and amateur astromers used NASA's TESS satellite and AI to find a stellar trio unlike any of the others observed so far. The trio of stars, which has been given the catchy name of TIC 290061484, is special because its orbits are extremely fast. Two of the stars orbit each other every 1.8 days while the third member of the trio orbits the other two every 24.5 days. For reference, Earth orbits the sun every 365 days, and Mercury orbits the sun every 88 days. The sun completes its orbit around the center of the Milky Way galaxy once every 225 million Earth years. Read more: Get Outside and Catch a Meteor Shower: Here Are All the Ones Left in 2024 According to The Astrophysical Journal, the fastest stellar trio previously observed involved an outer star orbiting its duo in 33.02 days. That makes TIC 2900061484 the fastest such trio of stars ever observed by humans. The trio was discovered by astronomers using NASA's TESS satellite, along with AI. Initially, the satellite observed flickers of starlight. Since the system is flat when viewed from TESS, the star with the longer orbit would eclipse the two smaller stars, causing the flickers. Astronomers used machine learning to sift through large sets of starlight data to identify when the eclipses occurred, and a smaller team of citizen astronomers filtered the data further to find the trio. Read more: October 2024 Skygazing Stars Include a Supermoon and a Rare Comet NASA uploaded a video of TESS observing the stellar triplets on YouTube. As the stars orbit one another, one passes in front of the other. Creating an eclipse event can help astronomers identify a duo or trio of stars on a flat plane. Notably, from 1:05 to 1:15 in the video, you can watch all three stars eclipse each other as their orbits take them around. That's the type of information the astronomers were looking for when filtering the data. "Thanks to the compact, edge-on configuration of the system, we can measure the orbits, masses, sizes, and temperatures of its stars," said Veselin Kostov, a research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. "And we can study how the system formed and predict how it may evolve." While it is unusual to see a trio of stars with such small orbits -- all three orbit each other in a space smaller than Mercury's orbit around the sun -- the orbit appears to be stable. All three stars orbit on a flat plane, which signals that their gravitational pulls don't upset the orbits of the other stars. For the time being, all three stars should remain in orbit with each other in perpetuity. However, as the stars age, that's when the fireworks are set to begin. Read more: Watch for the Northern Lights to Put On a Dazzling Show This Week "As the inner stars age, they will expand and ultimately merge, triggering a supernova explosion in around 20 to 40 million years," NASA says. Currently, this trio has the shortest orbit of any trio of stars observed, but it may not be for long. NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope captures more detailed imagery than TESS, which will allow astronomers to see deeper into the Milky Way galaxy with more clarity. This could uncover previously undiscovered trios with even shorter orbits. "We don't know much about a lot of the stars in the center of the galaxy except for the brightest ones," said Brian Powell, a co-author of the study and Goddard data scientist. "Roman's high-resolution view will help us measure light from stars that usually blur together, providing the best look yet at the nature of star systems in our galaxy."

NASA's TESS spots record-breaking stellar triplets

Professional and amateur astronomers teamed up with artificial intelligence to find an unmatched stellar trio called TIC 290061484, thanks to cosmic "strobe lights" captured by NASA's TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite). The system contains a set of twin stars orbiting each other every 1.8 days, and a third star that circles the pair in just 25 days. The discovery smashes the record for shortest outer orbital period for this type of system, set in 1956, which had a third star orbiting an inner pair in 33 days. "Thanks to the compact, edge-on configuration of the system, we can measure the orbits, masses, sizes, and temperatures of its stars," said Veselin Kostov, a research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. "And we can study how the system formed and predict how it may evolve." A paper, led by Kostov, describing the results was published in The Astrophysical Journal Oct. 2. Flickers in starlight helped reveal the tight trio, which is located in the constellation Cygnus. The system happens to be almost flat from our perspective. This means the stars each cross right in front of, or eclipse, each other as they orbit. When that happens, the nearer star blocks some of the farther star's light. Using machine learning, scientists filtered through enormous sets of starlight data from TESS to identify patterns of dimming that reveal eclipses. Then, a small team of citizen scientists filtered further, relying on years of experience and informal training to find particularly interesting cases. These amateur astronomers, who are co-authors on the new study, met as participants in an online citizen science project called Planet Hunters, which was active from 2010 to 2013. The volunteers later teamed up with professional astronomers to create a new collaboration called the Visual Survey Group, which has been active for over a decade. "We're mainly looking for signatures of compact multi-star systems, unusual pulsating stars in binary systems, and weird objects," said Saul Rappaport, an emeritus professor of physics at MIT in Cambridge. Rappaport co-authored the paper and has helped lead the Visual Survey Group for more than a decade. "It's exciting to identify a system like this because they're rarely found, but they may be more common than current tallies suggest." Many more likely speckle our galaxy, waiting to be discovered. Partly because the stars in the newfound system orbit in nearly the same plane, scientists say it's likely very stable despite their tight configuration (the trio's orbits fit within a smaller area than Mercury's orbit around the Sun). Each star's gravity doesn't perturb the others too much, like they could if their orbits were tilted in different directions. But while their orbits will likely remain stable for millions of years, "no one lives here," Rappaport said. "We think the stars formed together from the same growth process, which would have disrupted planets from forming very closely around any of the stars." The exception could be a distant planet orbiting the three stars as if they were one. As the inner stars age, they will expand and ultimately merge, triggering a supernova explosion in around 20 to 40 million years. In the meantime, astronomers are hunting for triple stars with even shorter orbits. That's hard to do with current technology, but a new tool is on the way. Images from NASA's upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will be much more detailed than TESS's. The same area of the sky covered by a single TESS pixel will fit more than 36,000 Roman pixels. And while TESS took a wide, shallow look at the entire sky, Roman will pierce deep into the heart of our galaxy where stars crowd together, providing a core sample rather than skimming the whole surface. "We don't know much about a lot of the stars in the center of the galaxy except for the brightest ones," said Brian Powell, a co-author and data scientist at Goddard. "Roman's high-resolution view will help us measure light from stars that usually blur together, providing the best look yet at the nature of star systems in our galaxy." And since Roman will monitor light from hundreds of millions of stars as part of one of its main surveys, it will help astronomers find more triple star systems in which all the stars eclipse each other. "We're curious why we haven't found star systems like these with even shorter outer orbital periods," said Powell. "Roman should help us find them and bring us closer to figuring out what their limits might be." Roman could also find eclipsing stars bound together in even larger groups -- half a dozen, or perhaps even more all orbiting each other like bees buzzing around a hive. "Before scientists discovered triply eclipsing triple star systems, we didn't expect them to be out there," said co-author Tamás Borkovits, a senior research fellow at the Baja Observatory of The University of Szeged in Hungary. "But once we found them, we thought, well why not? Roman, too, may reveal never-before-seen categories of systems and objects that will surprise astronomers."

NASA's TESS Spots Record-Breaking Stellar Triplets - NASA

Professional and amateur astronomers teamed up with artificial intelligence to find an unmatched stellar trio called TIC 290061484, thanks to cosmic "strobe lights" captured by NASA's TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite). The system contains a set of twin stars orbiting each other every 1.8 days, and a third star that circles the pair in just 25 days. The discovery smashes the record for shortest outer orbital period for this type of system, set in 1956, which had a third star orbiting an inner pair in 33 days. "Thanks to the compact, edge-on configuration of the system, we can measure the orbits, masses, sizes, and temperatures of its stars," said Veselin Kostov, a research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. "And we can study how the system formed and predict how it may evolve." A paper, led by Kostov, describing the results was published in The Astrophysical Journal Oct. 2. Flickers in starlight helped reveal the tight trio, which is located in the constellation Cygnus. The system happens to be almost flat from our perspective. This means the stars each cross right in front of, or eclipse, each other as they orbit. When that happens, the nearer star blocks some of the farther star's light. Using machine learning, scientists filtered through enormous sets of starlight data from TESS to identify patterns of dimming that reveal eclipses. Then, a small team of citizen scientists filtered further, relying on years of experience and informal training to find particularly interesting cases. These amateur astronomers, who are co-authors on the new study, met as participants in an online citizen science project called Planet Hunters, which was active from 2010 to 2013. The volunteers later teamed up with professional astronomers to create a new collaboration called the Visual Survey Group, which has been active for over a decade. "We're mainly looking for signatures of compact multi-star systems, unusual pulsating stars in binary systems, and weird objects," said Saul Rappaport, an emeritus professor of physics at MIT in Cambridge. Rappaport co-authored the paper and has helped lead the Visual Survey Group for more than a decade. "It's exciting to identify a system like this because they're rarely found, but they may be more common than current tallies suggest." Many more likely speckle our galaxy, waiting to be discovered. Partly because the stars in the newfound system orbit in nearly the same plane, scientists say it's likely very stable despite their tight configuration (the trio's orbits fit within a smaller area than Mercury's orbit around the Sun). Each star's gravity doesn't perturb the others too much, like they could if their orbits were tilted in different directions. But while their orbits will likely remain stable for millions of years, "no one lives here," Rappaport said. "We think the stars formed together from the same growth process, which would have disrupted planets from forming very closely around any of the stars." The exception could be a distant planet orbiting the three stars as if they were one. As the inner stars age, they will expand and ultimately merge, triggering a supernova explosion in around 20 to 40 million years. In the meantime, astronomers are hunting for triple stars with even shorter orbits. That's hard to do with current technology, but a new tool is on the way. Images from NASA's upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will be much more detailed than TESS's. The same area of the sky covered by a single TESS pixel will fit more than 36,000 Roman pixels. And while TESS took a wide, shallow look at the entire sky, Roman will pierce deep into the heart of our galaxy where stars crowd together, providing a core sample rather than skimming the whole surface. "We don't know much about a lot of the stars in the center of the galaxy except for the brightest ones," said Brian Powell, a co-author and data scientist at Goddard. "Roman's high-resolution view will help us measure light from stars that usually blur together, providing the best look yet at the nature of star systems in our galaxy." And since Roman will monitor light from hundreds of millions of stars as part of one of its main surveys, it will help astronomers find more triple star systems in which all the stars eclipse each other. "We're curious why we haven't found star systems like these with even shorter outer orbital periods," said Powell. "Roman should help us find them and bring us closer to figuring out what their limits might be." Roman could also find eclipsing stars bound together in even larger groups -- half a dozen, or perhaps even more all orbiting each other like bees buzzing around a hive. "Before scientists discovered triply eclipsing triple star systems, we didn't expect them to be out there," said co-author Tamás Borkovits, a senior research fellow at the Baja Observatory of The University of Szeged in Hungary. "But once we found them, we thought, well why not? Roman, too, may reveal never-before-seen categories of systems and objects that will surprise astronomers." TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission managed by NASA Goddard and operated by MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Additional partners include Northrop Grumman, based in Falls Church, Virginia; NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley; the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts; MIT's Lincoln Laboratory; and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. More than a dozen universities, research institutes, and observatories worldwide are participants in the mission. NASA's citizen science projects are collaborations between scientists and interested members of the public and do not require U.S. citizenship. Through these collaborations, volunteers (known as citizen scientists) have helped make thousands of important scientific discoveries. To get involved with a project, visit NASA's Citizen Science page.

New triple star system sets shortest orbital period record

Professional and amateur astronomers have made a groundbreaking discovery with the help of artificial intelligence, identifying a unique triple star system named TIC 290061484. This stellar trio was uncovered through cosmic "strobe lights" observed by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). TIC 290061484 features a pair of twin stars that orbit each other every 1.8 days, along with a third star that orbits the duo in just 25 days. This remarkable finding breaks the previous record for the shortest outer orbital period in such systems, which was established in 1956 with a third star orbiting an inner pair in 33 days. "Thanks to the compact, edge-on configuration of the system, we can measure the orbits, masses, sizes, and temperatures of its stars," said Veselin Kostov, a research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. "And we can study how the system formed and predict how it may evolve." A paper, led by Kostov, describing the results was published in The Astrophysical Journal Oct. 2. Flickers in starlight helped reveal the tight trio, which is located in the constellation Cygnus. The system happens to be almost flat from our perspective. This means the stars each cross right in front of, or eclipse, each other as they orbit. When that happens, the nearer star blocks some of the farther star's light. Using machine learning, scientists filtered through enormous sets of starlight data from TESS to identify patterns of dimming that reveal eclipses. Then, a small team of citizen scientists filtered further, relying on years of experience and informal training to find particularly interesting cases. These amateur astronomers, who are co-authors on the new study, met as participants in an online citizen science project called Planet Hunters, which was active from 2010 to 2013. The volunteers later teamed up with professional astronomers to create a new collaboration called the Visual Survey Group, which has been active for over a decade. "We're mainly looking for signatures of compact multi-star systems, unusual pulsating stars in binary systems, and weird objects," said Saul Rappaport, an emeritus professor of physics at MIT in Cambridge. Rappaport co-authored the paper and has helped lead the Visual Survey Group for more than a decade. "It's exciting to identify a system like this because they're rarely found, but they may be more common than current tallies suggest." Many more likely speckle our galaxy, waiting to be discovered. Partly because the stars in the newfound system orbit in nearly the same plane, scientists say it's likely very stable despite their tight configuration (the trio's orbits fit within a smaller area than Mercury's orbit around the sun). Each star's gravity doesn't perturb the others too much, like they could if their orbits were tilted in different directions. But while their orbits will likely remain stable for millions of years, "no one lives here," Rappaport said. "We think the stars formed together from the same growth process, which would have disrupted planets from forming very closely around any of the stars." The exception could be a distant planet orbiting the three stars as if they were one. As the inner stars age, they will expand and ultimately merge, triggering a supernova explosion in around 20 to 40 million years. In the meantime, astronomers are hunting for triple stars with even shorter orbits. That's hard to do with current technology, but a new tool is on the way. Images from NASA's upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will be much more detailed than TESS's. The same area of the sky covered by a single TESS pixel will fit more than 36,000 Roman pixels. And while TESS took a wide, shallow look at the entire sky, Roman will pierce deep into the heart of our galaxy where stars crowd together, providing a core sample rather than skimming the whole surface. "We don't know much about a lot of the stars in the center of the galaxy except for the brightest ones," said Brian Powell, a co-author and data scientist at Goddard. "Roman's high-resolution view will help us measure light from stars that usually blur together, providing the best look yet at the nature of star systems in our galaxy." And since Roman will monitor light from hundreds of millions of stars as part of one of its main surveys, it will help astronomers find more triple star systems in which all the stars eclipse each other. "We're curious why we haven't found star systems like these with even shorter outer orbital periods," said Powell. "Roman should help us find them and bring us closer to figuring out what their limits might be." Roman could also find eclipsing stars bound together in even larger groups -- half a dozen, or perhaps even more all orbiting each other like bees buzzing around a hive. "Before scientists discovered triply eclipsing triple star systems, we didn't expect them to be out there," said co-author Tamás Borkovits, a senior research fellow at the Baja Observatory of The University of Szeged in Hungary. "But once we found them, we thought, well why not? Roman, too, may reveal never-before-seen categories of systems and objects that will surprise astronomers."