The Star That Blinked Every Three Days

Pavel Rabtsevich, a hobby astronomer in Spain who doesn't own a telescope, used AI coding helpers to search public data from NASA's TESS space telescope, and found a faraway star that dims a tiny bit about every three days. That could mean a planet is passing in front of it. He checked his AI helpers' work round after round, and now TESS will look at the star again from October 31 to November 26 to test his predictions. The Wow Picture A star 116 light-years away blinking like a clock (dim, three days, dim, three days), in measurements taken years apart, and nobody had noticed until now. Kid Mission of the Week Be a planet hunter at home. With a grown-up, shine a flashlight at a wall in a dark room (never into anyone's eyes) and slowly move a small ball through the beam. Watch the light on the wall dim as your "planet" passes its "star." Try a bigger ball to see if it dims more. Then predict your planet's schedule ("it passes every three claps") and have someone check you. Good to Know This is a planet candidate, not a confirmed planet. Rabtsevich says himself that more observations are needed, and that even if the star dims on time in November, that alone won't prove it's a planet. Sources Webb Wright, "Did Claude Help an Amateur Astronomer Discover a New Planet?" Gizmodo, October 9, 2026. https://gizmodo.com/did-claude-help-an-amateur-astronomer-discover-a-new-planet-2000824393 Laura Bennett, "Claude Code Helps Amateur Astronomer Find a Planet Candidate," AIstify, October 8, 2026 (updated October 9, 2026). https://aistify.com/claude-code-planet-candidate-tess-pavel-rabtsevich/ MIT TESS Science Office, "Director's Discretionary Targets" (lists active program 100, Pavel Rabtsevich, "Two-minute cadence for TIC 4206066, a nearby K-dwarf with a 1.4R planet candidate"), accessed October 12, 2026. https://tess.mit.edu/science/ddt/ "TESS schedules a follow-up for candidate signals around TIC 4206066," NeoTeo, October 9, 2026. https://www.neoteo.com/en/tess-schedules-a-follow-up-for-candidate-signals-around-tic-4206066 Pavel Rabtsevich, "Two Transit-like Signals in TESS Photometry of the Nearby K Dwarf TIC 4206066," preprint on Zenodo, September 25, 2026 (abstract checked via index listing). https://exa.ai/library/publication/ntcj325jyww