NASA's TESS finds 'mysterious' object causing light fluctuations in binary star system

Scientists studying the universe using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have come across something that is, to a large extent, ‘mysterious’. The astronomers, while observing an object called TIC 400799224, found that it is fluctuating in brightness, which hints towards another object orbiting it.

While analysis of TESS' data shows TIC 400799224 to be a pair of stars, scientists are unable to determine which one is being orbited and what exactly is orbiting the star. While scientists have concluded that TIC 400799224 is a binary star system, they are suspecting that the mysterious object orbiting one of the stars might be an asteroid or even a planet.  

Is it an asteroid or a planet?

In their paper published in The Astronomical Journal, the astronomers noted that both the stars are as much as 300 AU apart from each other, AU being the distance between Earth and the Sun. It was also stated that the dip in starlight is being caused basically due to clouds of dust being released by the supposed asteroid/planet.

The research team believes the dip is due to dust clouds rather than the complete celestial bodies because they are not recording fluctuations after every transit by the planet/asteroid. A 'transit' is a phase when a celestial body crosses the face of its star, which causes an eclipse and results in light fluctuations.

TESS is a space observatory that has the sole job of finding exoplanets by recording these dips and locating the alien worlds. However, the scientists are facing some confusion about their findings as dust clouds, that they saw causing light fluctuations, are much larger than expected. This has made the team assume that whatever is out there orbiting the star is undergoing disintegration. Meanwhile, the scientists are continuing their study in order to determine what exactly is orbiting the star and how big is it.

More about NASA's TESS 

Launched in 2018, TESS has been developed to study stars that are 30 to 100 times brighter than the ones observed during the Kepler and K2 missions in order to find exoplanets. NASA says that TESS enables far easier follow-up observations with both ground-based and space-based telescopes. As of now, TESS has discovered 172 exoplanets with 4,703 candidate exoplanets waiting for confirmation. 

(Image: NASA)