Astronomers Find 27 New Circumbinary Planets
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- Margo Thornton led the analysis that identified 27 potential circumbinary planets by monitoring eclipse timing variations in 1,590 binary star systems.
- Ben Montet highlighted that traditional transit detection misses many systems because it requires precise alignment, prompting the use of apsidal precession methods.
- NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite supplied the photometric data that revealed 36 binaries with unexplained timing wobble, of which 27 may be planetary.
- UNSW eliminated alternative causes such as stellar rotation and mutual gravitational pulls before attributing the wobble to a third body.
- Candidate planets are estimated to range from Neptune-sized up to ten times Jupiter’s mass, but spectral observations are needed to confirm they are not brown dwarfs or stars.
- Dr Sara Webb praised the technique as “very clever” and noted it could enable discovery of more circumbinary worlds.
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society published the study, expanding the known sample of circumbinary planets from about 18 to nearly 45.
Why it matters: Astronomers gain a larger pool of circumbinary worlds to study, and the new eclipse‑timing technique offers a way to uncover planets that transit searches miss, expanding the sample for study. This enriches the data set for testing formation models and informs future observation strategies.
