Record-Breaking Stellar Triplets by NASA's TESS Spacecraft | #shorts

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.

Credits:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Science writer
Ashley Balzer (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
Producer
Scott Wiessinger (eMITS)
Scientist
Veselin Kostov (NASA Postdoctoral Fellow)
Visualizers
Veselin Kostov (NASA Postdoctoral Fellow)
Brian Powell (NASA/GSFC)