Cardigan astronomer discovers new multi-planetary system

Thirty years on, that fascination has resulted in the publication of one of the most important astronomical announcements in modern times, following Dr Standing’s discovery of the second-ever multiplanetary circumbinary system.

In layman’s terms, this equates to a planet that orbits around two stars in the centre instead of just one, as we have in the Solar System, with circumbinary planets orbiting around both stars at once.

“This is quite an important discovery, not least because it was made using ground observatories rather than expensive space telescopes,” said Matthew.

Three years ago Matthew and his international research team discovered another circumbinary planet called TOI-1338b in the same system using data from NASA’s TESS space telescope.

This planet was around 6.9 times as large as Earth and 1,300 light years away.

Using state-of-the-art instruments installed on two telescopes located in the Atacama Desert in Chile, Matthew’s team then attempted to measure the mass of the planet noticed by TESS.

Despite their best efforts, they were unable to achieve this but instead they discovered a second planet, which they’ve named BEBOP-1c.

Dr Standing in front of the European Southern Observatory's telescope used in the discovery (Image: Dr Matthew Standing)

“BEBOP-1c has an orbital period of 215 days, and a mass 65 times larger than Earth, which is about five times less than Jupiter’s mass,” continued Dr Standing.

“This was a difficult system to confirm, and our observations were interrupted by the COVID pandemic when telescopes in Chile closed for six months during a critical part of the planet’s orbit.

"This part of the orbit only became observable again last year, when we finalised the detection.”

Only 12 circumbinary systems are known so far, and this is only the second that hosts more than one planet in the TOI-1338/BEBOP-1 circumbinary system.

But more might be identified in the future, when similar observations can be carried out by the team.

After attending Penparc primary school and Cardigan Secondary School between 2005 and 2012, Matthew went to Cardiff University to study astrophysics.

There followed a two-year break when he worked in defence engineering but soon realised that life without the stars was a tough one.

“It just wasn’t for me,” he laughs.

And so he went to Birmingham University to do his PhD in astrophysics and is now a researcher at The Open University.

Earlier this year he was awarded a European Space Agency Fellowship which will result in him spending at least two years doing post-doctorate research at Madrid.

“I suppose West Wales was the perfect place to grow up and I remember from a very early age looking up at the stars and being totally absorbed by what I saw,” he says.

“And as time went on, I realised that everything that interested me was astronomy related.

“But this doesn’t mean to say that all my time is spent looking through telescopes. A great deal of my work is doing outreach work and inspiring kids to carry on with their physics and astronomy and continue with their great journey of astronomical exploration.”

The BEPOP-1c discovery is published in Monday’s publication (June 12), of ‘Nature Astronomy’.