Six-star system found by TESS space telescope

[Urwumpe]

The TESS space telescope, usually searching for Exoplanets, had discovered TYC 7037-89-1, a very beautiful star system made of three binary starsystems,

Discovery Alert: First Six-star System Where All Six Stars Undergo Eclipses - NASA Science

Astronomers found the first six-star system where all of the stars participate in eclipses, a discovery made by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The system is about 1,900 light-years away in the constellation Eridanus.

exoplanets.nasa.gov

The preprint to the discovery can be found here:

TIC 168789840: A Sextuply-Eclipsing Sextuple Star System

We report the discovery of a sextuply-eclipsing sextuple star system from TESS data, TIC 168789840, also known as TYC 7037-89-1, the first known sextuple system consisting of three eclipsing binaries. The target was observed in Sectors 4 and 5 during Cycle 1, with lightcurves extracted from TESS...

arxiv.org

I really wish we could visit such places in orbiter one day, that one is really more fantastic than science fiction ever could have painted it. It is not the first sixtuple star system found, but the structure of it is really what makes it special in the known universe. Imagine sitting on a planet on one of the stars of TYC 7037-89-1B, that permits exoplanets to exist, looking up to see two suns and a dense cluster of four very bright stars above.

 

[GLS]

Who needs sci-fi when there is reality?

 

[jedidia]

If they ever put that into elite dangerous, it's gonna take all day to cruise from one end to the other...

 

[N_Molson]

I guess so many gravitational sources of various masses can make navigation... interesting... ?

 

[Urwumpe]

I guess so many gravitational sources of various masses can make navigation... interesting... ?

I am pretty sure, I hear a Jules Verne Challenge navigator laugh silently. ?

 

[Challenger007]

Yes, this corner of the Universe is very interesting, and it is a pity that it cannot be seen from a home telescope. But who knows what will happen in a few decades and what opportunities will be in our hands? My son and I now really enjoy watching the Moon, Mars, and Venus through our Celestron Newtonian Telescope. We haven’t made any further progress yet, but the opportunities that we have now are enough for us to spend exciting evenings with a common hobby.