Report by Shuci Giridhar
An exoplanet displayed a strange phenomenon. Its brightness dipped (reduced) very suddenly. After that, it also emitted strange signals. This puzzled astronomers for many years.
This exoplanet was found by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite(TESS), which has also recorded the event.
For long, astronomers have been trying to find the cause of the rapid drop in brightness and some strange signals emitted after that. They thought it could be a double star system.
What is TESS
Launched in 2018, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has worked to to identify small exoplanets orbiting the stars close to the sun.
Till now, it has found over 4703 exoplanets, out of which there are 172 confirmed exoplanets.
Ranging from stellar pulsations, shocks from supernovae, disintegrating planets, gravitational self-lensed binary stars, eclipsing triple star systems, to disk occultations, and more, TESS has found many formations of these exoplanets.
It spends a month on a patch of sky then moves on to another.
How were the strange signals spotted?
The strange signals were found by Dr. Karen Collins who identified them to be coming from a strange and dusty object.
After some research, Dr.Collins found that the object was TIC 400799224, the new exoplanet found by TESS.
It was spotted as it displayed an instantaneous drop in brightness by about 25%. Immediately after this, the planet started emmiting strange signals.
Various resources were used by the astronomers to map TIC 400799224. The astronomers predicted that it could be a binary system, emitting clouds of dust that immerse the Star that TIC 4007 99224 orbits around.
What could the strange signals be?
In their shapes, depths, and durations, the dust immersions of the star were are erratic and detectable from the ground.
According to astronomers, TIC 400799224, which is an orbiting body, is puzzling by itself. Over the last 60 years, observations over TIC 400799224 show that the periodicity even now remains constant.
Based on the research, astronomers have now concluded that the strange signals probably occurred due to an eclipse.
Image: Representative Image Only