{"id":357683,"date":"2026-07-01T19:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T19:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/357683\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T19:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T19:59:09","slug":"texas-tech-researcher-part-of-team-that-finds-planet-in-new-way-july-2026-texas-tech-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/357683\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Tech Researcher Part of Team That Finds Planet in New Way | July 2026 | Texas Tech Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

Physicist Michael Fausnaugh works with other physicists to identify new planet through
\n NASA\u2019s TESS mission.<\/p>\n

\t\tCREATORS<\/p>\n

\"Portrait<\/p>\n

Michael Fausnaugh<\/a>, assistant professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy<\/a> at Texas Tech University<\/a>, is part of a group of researchers who have identified a planet orbiting a distant
\n star, according to a news release<\/a> from NASA.<\/p>\n

Fausnaugh and astronomers from the University of New Mexico are authors of a paper
\n explaining the findings, which were made possible through the use of NASA\u2019s TESS (Transiting
\n Exoplanet Survey Satellite). The planet, called Gaia23bra b, was initially discovered
\n in 2023 using the European Space Agency\u2019s now-retired Gaia space telescope and is
\n described as a super Jupiter orbiting far from its host star.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a background star with a foreground star in front of it magnifying its light,\u201d
\n Fausnaugh said. \u201cIf there\u2019s a planet orbiting the foreground star, you can see the
\n signature of the planet through gravitational microlensing. The technique is well-established,
\n but we had never done it with TESS, and the unique thing about TESS is it takes images
\n every couple of minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Gaia had initially flagged a star brightening, researchers went back through
\n the archived TESS data and found the event had been captured there as well.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s analysis is scheduled to be published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters<\/a>. According to the findings, the planet orbits an orange dwarf star that\u2019s about 80
\n percent of the sun\u2019s mass and is nearly 40,000 light-years away from Earth.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn order to find planets, we have very limited ways of detecting them, and most of
\n the planets we\u2019ve found so far have been what you might consider the easy planets
\n to find,\u201d Fausnaugh said. \u201cThe problem is those planets are close to the stars, and
\n they go around the stars very quickly.<\/p>\n

\"combiningTexas Tech University physicist Michael Farsnaugh is part of an international research
\n team that used NASA\u2019s TESS satellite in a new way to help confirm the existence of
\n a distant “super Jupiter” exoplanet\u202fnearly 40,000\u202flight-years from Earth. The discovery\u202fdemonstrates\u202fthe
\n potential of combining gravitational microlensing with TESS observations to detect
\n planets more closely resembling\u202fthose in our own solar system, expanding astronomers’
\n ability to study previously hard-to-find worlds. <\/p>\n

\u201cThen there\u2019s others that are Jupiter size, but they\u2019re so close to the star that
\n they are also very hot. They don\u2019t match what we have in our solar system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Out of more than 6,000 known exoplanets, worlds outside our solar system, about 75%
\n were discovered through the transit method, the typical technique employed by TESS.
\n Astronomers monitor numerous stars looking for those that periodically dim as orbiting
\n planets cross in front of them. This is known as a transit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, microlensing has revealed less than 5% of known exoplanets. This occurs
\n when two stars align closely with light from the more distant star curving as it travels
\n through the warped space time caused by the nearer star\u2019s miss. If the alignment is
\n especially close, the nearer star acts like a lens, focusing and magnifying light
\n from the background star.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The transit method is best at finding large planets orbiting very close to their host
\n stars; large planets block the most starlight, while close-in planets are more likely
\n to pass in front of the host star. These extremely hot worlds are fascinating to scientists,
\n but astronomers want to find planets like those in our solar system, too. Gravitational
\n microlensing is best at detecting planets like Jupiter and Saturn, which are massive
\n and orbit further from their host stars.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

\u201cAstronomy really sparks the imagination,\u201d Fausnaugh said. \u201cThere\u2019s always this gap
\n between the data and the interpretation. It can be a complicated and technical process,
\n but here, our best physical description of this star system says, \u2018There\u2019s a planet
\n up there.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Physicist Michael Fausnaugh works with other physicists to identify new planet through NASA\u2019s TESS mission. CREATORS Michael Fausnaugh,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-357683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}