TESS Archives

Relations between mutual inclination and stellar metallicity and stellar mass after sample control. Left: stellar metallicity vs. mutual inclination plot for a subsample of 78 systems selected to minimize the influence of stellar mass. Right: stellar mass vs. mutual inclination plot for a subsample of 81 systems selected to minimize the influence of stellar metallicity. Unlike [Fe/H] vs. ∆i, the correlation between stellar mass and ∆i is not statistically significant in our sample, although we cannot completely rule out such a correlation. See Section 5 for more details. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

Short-Period Small Planets with High Mutual Inclinations are more Common around Metal-Rich Stars

by Keith CowingFebruary 10, 2025

We present a correlation between the stellar metallicities and the mutual inclinations of multi-planet systems hosting short-period small planets (a/Rs<12, Rp<4Re). We analyzed 89 multi-planet systems discovered by Kepler, K2, […]

The WASP-132 system contains a Hot Jupiter (in the foreground), an inner super-Earth (here transiting in front of the orange host star) and the planet WASP-132d, discovered towards the outside of the system. © Thibaut Roger - Université de Genève

Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Press Release

Not All Hot Jupiters Orbit Solo

by Keith CowingFebruary 3, 2025April 14, 2026

Hot Jupiters are giant planets initially known to orbit alone close to their star. During their migration towards their star, these planets were thought to accrete or eject any other […]

Top: Transmission Spectroscopy showing extra absorption in the Na doublet’s core lines across different global abundances, measured in PPM. This plot compares three injected models, illustrating the presence or absence of TiO and VO. It features one example with error bars plus a main strand after several runs. In light blue, regions below 200 ppm are highlighted, indicating areas under the estimated error threshold coming from models without signals. Bottom: Three examples of Transmission Spectroscopy in PPM are presented. Black points represent data binned by a factor of 100, the light blue area denotes a 95% confidence interval, magenta highlights the core lines, and red dashed lines indicate the standard deviation of the continuum. Below these plots are normalised flux profiles centred on the core lines, with a dashed blue line marking the Na doublets. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

A Closer Look at LTT 9779b: The ESPRESSO Endeavour to Pierce the Atmospheric Veil

by Keith CowingFebruary 3, 2025February 2, 2025

The proliferation of exoplanet discoveries in exotic environments like the Neptune desert challenges our understanding of planetary atmospheres under intense irradiation. The unexpected discovery of LTT9779 b, an ultra-hot Neptune […]

A zoomed-in view of the target, BD+05 4868 A, and its fainter binary companion, BD+05 4868 B, located 3.0′′ to the North-East. This image is taken from one of the rp-band frames obtained with LCO 2.0m/MuSCAT3 on the night of UT 2024 October 17. It shows that the two binary components were resolved in this observation. Figure 4 shows the light curves extracted from the MuSCAT3 data obtained that night. -- /arxiv.org

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release

Disintegrating Planetary Interiors Unveiled By TESS and JWST

by Keith CowingFebruary 2, 2025February 2, 2025

The Penn State team presented novel measurements of a rocky planet’s interior composition using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), while the MIT team presented the discovery of the nearest […]

NCORES observed planets in orbital period - planet radius (left) and orbital period - planet mass (right). Confirmed planets are shown in purple and null results in orange. Planets detected in the radial velocities only and plotted with their 𝑀𝑝 sin 𝑖 values and shown in blue. A Gaussian kernel density estimate showing the background population of planets from the NASA Exoplanet Archive is shown in green. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report

The NCORES Program: Precise Planetary Masses, Null Results, and Insight Into The Planet Mass Distribution Near The Radius Gap

by Keith CowingJanuary 27, 2025September 18, 2025

NCORES was a large observing program on the ESO HARPS spectrograph, dedicated to measuring the masses of Neptune-like and smaller transiting planets discovered by the TESS satellite using the radial […]

Radius versus mass for all transiting companions from 7 - 150 MJ . The black dashed lines depict the canonical 13 and 80 MJ BD boundaries. The solid purple line at 42 MJ shows the proposed Ma & Ge (2014) boundary between planet and star-like BDs. Note: systems where the primary object is a white dwarf or brown dwarf are not shown. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

11 New Transiting Brown Dwarfs and Very Low Mass Stars from TESS

by Keith CowingJanuary 22, 2025January 22, 2025

We present the discovery of 11 new transiting brown dwarfs and low-mass M-dwarfs from NASA’s TESS mission: TOI-2844, TOI-3122, TOI-3577, TOI-3755, TOI-4462, TOI-4635, TOI-4737, TOI-4759, TOI-5240, TOI-5467, and TOI-5882.

125 flares discovered in CM Draconis, stacked together and aligned to have a peak at 𝑡 = 0.

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Proxima Centauri, Radiation, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Status Report, Stellar Cartography, TRAPPIST-1

Identifying Flare Locations Through Exoplanet Transit Occultations

by Keith CowingJanuary 11, 2025

M dwarfs are the most common stars in the galaxy, with long lifespans, a high occurrence rate of rocky planets, and close-in habitable zones.

We include a variety of plots summarizing our training and analysis of HD 173701. Top Left: Kepler and TESS training data, as well as our best fit GP model overlaid. Top Right: RV time series and training posteriors. Bottom: Results of our injection-recovery analysis in the two cases described in §4. The left plots show the preference for models including the injected planet when no GP training is applied. The middle two plots show the improvements gained when training on Kepler or TESS. The rightmost plots highlight the differences between Kepler and TESS training. --astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Leveraging Precise Photometry From Kepler and TESS to Extract Exoplanets from Radial Velocity Time Series

by Keith CowingDecember 18, 2024December 18, 2024

Stellar activity contamination of radial velocity (RV) data is one of the top challenges plaguing the field of extreme precision RV (EPRV) science. Previous work has shown that photometry can […]

TESS aperture field around the target star TOI-1803. (Image generated with tpfplotter, Aller et al. (2020)). -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

A Joint Effort To Discover And Characterize Two Resonant Mini Neptunes Around TOI-1803 With TESS, HARPS-N And CHEOPS

by Keith CowingDecember 16, 2024December 16, 2024

We present the discovery of two mini Neptunes near a 2:1 orbital resonance configuration orbiting the K0 star TOI-1803. We describe their orbital architecture in detail and suggest some possible […]

Instellation flux as a function of planet escape velocity, in log-log scale. Based on data from the NASA Exoplanet Archive (2024) downloaded on June 30, 2024. The empirical “cosmic shoreline” and the water vapor greenhouse runaway threshold (Zahnle & Catling 2017) are shown as cyan and yellow shaded regions, respectively. Planets are categorized into terrestrial planets (magenta), sub-Neptunes (blue), Neptune-like planets (green), and gas giants (yellow) based on radius, see legend. The red rectangles represent escape velocities calculated based on HD 101581 planets’ mean estimated masses assuming Hypatia Catalog metallicity. Because only radius, but not mass, is known, we further plot light red regions covering all possible interior compositions, ranging from pure iron to pure silicates. Height of the rectangles represent uncertainties in insolation. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Two Earth-size Planets and an Earth-size Candidate Transiting the Nearby Star HD 101581

by Keith CowingDecember 13, 2024December 13, 2024

We report the validation of multiple planets transiting the nearby (d=12.8 pc) K5V dwarf HD 101581 (GJ 435, TOI-6276, TIC 397362481).

TESS

Short-Period Small Planets with High Mutual Inclinations are more Common around Metal-Rich Stars

Not All Hot Jupiters Orbit Solo

A Closer Look at LTT 9779b: The ESPRESSO Endeavour to Pierce the Atmospheric Veil

Disintegrating Planetary Interiors Unveiled By TESS and JWST

The NCORES Program: Precise Planetary Masses, Null Results, and Insight Into The Planet Mass Distribution Near The Radius Gap

11 New Transiting Brown Dwarfs and Very Low Mass Stars from TESS

Identifying Flare Locations Through Exoplanet Transit Occultations

Leveraging Precise Photometry From Kepler and TESS to Extract Exoplanets from Radial Velocity Time Series

A Joint Effort To Discover And Characterize Two Resonant Mini Neptunes Around TOI-1803 With TESS, HARPS-N And CHEOPS

Two Earth-size Planets and an Earth-size Candidate Transiting the Nearby Star HD 101581

Astrobiologist Dale Andersen’s Antarctic Field Report: 14 November 2026: Setting Up Lab and Dive Tents

Testing The Hypothesis, ‘Planetary Protection Is Expensive’ From The ESA Perspective

Tracing Galactic Dust Reddening with Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Emission: SPHEREx Observations of the North Ecliptic Pole

Signatures of CH4 and NH3 in the Atmosphere of β Pictoris b

Hydrolyzed Hazes on Water-rich Exoplanets: Composition and Prebiotic Chemistry