Giuseppe Conzo and Mara Moriconi, members of the Palidoro Amateur Astronomers Group, have made an extraordinary discovery: a Jupiter-like exoplanet 300 years light from us, orbiting a Sun-like star in the constellation of Dolphin. Their discovery was recently published in Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society and mentioned in a preliminary paper on arXiv.
How it was discovered the Jupiter-like exoplanet
It all started by analyzing the data provided by NASA’s TESS space telescope. Giuseppe Conzo noticed a decrease in brightness in the star Toi–6883, a clue that could mean the passage of a planet in front of the star. The two amateur astronomers verified the absence of interference or errors in the data, confirming that the signal was not a false positive.
Through further analysis, it was possible determine the dimension of the planet, which turned out to be 13 times that of Earth, making it slightly larger than Jupiter. Furthermore, a subsequent Seti-led study defined the planet’s orbital period as just over 16 Earth days.
This discovery not only does it add another planet to the exoplanet catalog but it also demonstrates the value of collaboration between amateur astronomers and institutions science in contributing to our understanding of the universe. There dedication and the precision of amateur astronomers can in fact lead to significant discoveries, often with limited resources.
Conzo underlines the importance of fortune and hard work in field of planetary discoveries, remembering that space exploration is a field open to contributions from all over the world, professionals and non-professionals.
Now that Toi-6883 b has been confirmed as a planet, it will become part of the European databases and probably also those of NASA, making it the subject of further studies and observations.
What is your opinion on the impact of amateur astronomers in astronomical research?
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