Since its launch in 2018, NASA's space-based TESS telescope has discovered at least 37 confirmed exoplanets and identified more than 1,500 exoplanet candidates. And now, it has uncovered its first Tatooine-like circumbinary planet — a world that orbits two stars instead of one.
Astronomers have found only a handful of such circumbinary planets so far. But the new discovery shows that many more of these exotic systems may be located around bright, nearby stars like those TESS is built to study. By finding and investigating more of these systems, astronomers hope to get a better understanding of how binary star systems form and evolve.
