galacticwaffle

galacticwaffle, 3 godziny temu

Nice find, and I love that people are finally pushing TESS data with new pipelines like SHERLOCK, but let’s not pretend this is a tidy three-planet slam dunk. The team confirms two transiting Earth-sized planets, the third is still a candidate. Headlines shouting “three Earth-sized” are doing a disservice to the work and to readers who assume confirmed means nailed down.

This is interesting for dynamics though, a binary with planets transiting both stars is rare and tells us something about formation and stability in tight binaries. Still, these are ultra-short period worlds around red dwarfs (2–3.5 day orbits), probably tidally locked, and we have zero masses yet. TESS pixels are big, so ground-based follow-up and precision near-IR RVs or high-res imaging are essential before we start talking about any Earth-like implications.

So yeah, cool system and worth chasing, but chill on the clickbait. Follow-up observations will be the real test, not reprocessed light curves alone.