Gen Z’s intergalactic takeover has begun.
On Monday, NASA announced that its Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which captures images to be uploaded to the Planet Hunters TESS citizen science project, had evidence of a new planet. The first circumbinary planet captured by TESS, “TOI 1338 b” as it is now known orbits two stars in the constellation Pictor — approximately 1,300 light-year away from Earth.
The person responsible for the new discovery? 17-year-old intern Wolf Cukier.
In summer 2019, Cukier was tasked with examining “variations in star brightness” in images captured by TESS. In a NASA press release, Goddard researcher Veselin Kostov explained that the human eye is better equipped than an algorithm when it comes to detecting subtle changes and patterns — so, a perfect job for a first-week intern. Read more…
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