A new satellite survey has identified 27 potential circumbinary planets—worlds orbiting two stars, much like the fictional planet Tatooine from Star Wars. The discovery, made using data from NASA's TESS space telescope, nearly doubles the known count of such planets, which previously stood at just 18.
The research, led by Margo Thornton, a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales, employed a novel method that tracks changes in binary star orbits over time. By monitoring variations in eclipse schedules, the team could infer the presence of a third body—likely a planet—influencing the stars' motion.
“Most of our current knowledge on planets is biased, based on how we’ve looked for them. We’ve mostly found the easiest ones to detect,” Thornton said. “This new method could help us uncover a large population of hidden planets, especially those that don’t line up perfectly from our line of sight.”
The candidates, described in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, range in size from Neptune-mass to up to ten times the mass of Jupiter. They await confirmation through future observations. The survey examined 1,590 binary star systems, finding that nearly 2% could host such planets.
“That implies there could potentially be thousands, or tens of thousands, of possible planets to be found,” said co-author Ben Montet, also from UNSW. The method, previously used to characterise binary systems but not for large-scale planet searches, opens a new window into understanding planetary populations in the universe.
