Vibe Astronomy: Discovering Exoplanets

A developer used Claude Code to search NASA TESS low-cadence photometry and identified two previously undocumented Earth-sized exoplanet candidates: TIC 370612437 in Cygnus, 158 light-years away, dimming 0.02% every 3.56 days, and HIP 114417 in Andromeda, 134 light-years away, dimming 0.03% every 4.93 days. The dips repeat 55 and 21 times respectively across four observing years (2019–2024) and appear in both NASA and MIT image-processing pipelines, though a faint neighboring eclipsing binary could mimic the signal, so the finds remain unconfirmed candidates pending submission to NASA's ExoFOP and a 2027–2028 TESS re-scan.

I may have found two new Earth-sized planets in our galaxy this morning Inspired by yesterday’s reddit thread on how someone used Claude Code to find a new planet, I spent this morning searching NASA TESS data on nearby stars that TESS scanned less thoroughly at low cadence . To my surprise the pipeline discovered two previously undocumented exoplanet candidates: • TIC 370612437 Cygnus constellation, 158 light-years : dims by 0.02% every 3.56 days → ~1.0× Earth’s size. • HIP 114417 Andromeda constellation, 134 ly : 0.03% every 4.93 days → ~1.1× Earth. The method to find them is to search for periodic dims in light coming from a star when a planet passes in front of it. For both the candidate exoplanets, the dip repeats 55 and 21 times respectively across 4 separate observing years 2019-2024 . These are obviously tentative and unconfirmed, but several signals point to them being credible candidates: • same dip in NASA’s and MIT’s separate processing of the images • hide one year’s dip and predict its times from rest of the dips matched in 3 of 4 years • flip light curves to create fake signals and validate observed dips against it The method and results were reviewed by independent agents: Codex and fresh Claude. Important caveat: a faint neighbouring pair of eclipsing stars could fake the dip, so these exoplanets remain candidates pending further verification. What’s next: report to NASA’s ExoFOP as Community TESS Objects of Interest, so astronomers can verify. The next scan of these stars via TESS will happen in Aug 2027 - Apr 2028, if the preregistered dip predictions hold up, these are indeed strong candidates. Nicknames for these exoplanets: Aakanksha Sanskrit: aspiration and Orbit well, Orbit