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TIC 172900988 Exoplanet System

A warm super-Jupiter orbiting binary Sun-like stars //

TIC 172900988 (TIC 1729) is a real exoplanet system located 803 light years from Earth, consisting of two stars and one known planet. The stars form an eclipsing binary with a fairly eccentric 19.7-day orbit. Both are very similar in mass and size and could be considered twins. TIC 1729 A, the primary component, is of an F9V spectral type with 1.24 solar masses and 1.38 solar radii. TIC 1729 B is a slightly smaller G0V yellow dwarf with 1.20 solar masses and 1.31 solar radii. The stars are younger than the Sun at 3.1 billion years old, and hotter at surface temperatures of 6050 K and 5983 K respectively.

Identified in 2021, TIC 1729 (AB) b is a planet on a nearly circular orbit around both stars of the binary pair, hence the use of "(AB)" in its identifier. It is a gas giant with around 1.03 times the radius of Jupiter, but less certain are its mass and orbital period, which could not be uniquely determined. This means that the planet could have a range of characteristics, but all would fit the observed data. Namely, it is thought to lie between 2.65–3.09 Jupiter masses with an orbital period of 188.8–204.1 days, making up six possible solutions. The most likely scenario is a 2.98 Jupiter-mass object on a 200.4-day orbit, and so is replicated in this simulation. Interestingly, with this discovery, TIC 1729 (AB) b is now the most massive known transiting circumbinary planet, beating out the previous record holder Kepler-1647 (AB) b by a factor of 2. While it isn't a rocky planet and lies too close to its stars to be habitable, studies showed that the system is capable of hosting an Earth-mass planet further out in its habitable zone without major risks to its orbital stability. Unfortunately, if such a planet does exist, it would be largely beyond the detection thresholds of our current methods.

In this simulation, characteristics of the TIC 1729 system are replicated from literature wherever possible or inferred in cases of knowledge gaps:

• I've envisioned TIC 1729 (AB) b as a warm super-Jupiter with an average temperature of ~400 K.
  
• An intricate pattern of blue and white cloud bands provides this planet with a most photogenic appearance, though they are far more uniform than Jupiter and lack its distinctly coloured stripes. Permanent storms and vortices swirl around its polar regions under the watchful gaze of the binary stars.
  
• The planet rotates once on its axis every 10.2 hours and is slightly tilted at 6.10° to the simulation grid.
  
• As a Jupiter analogue, TIC 1729 (AB) also boasts a considerable and immense magnetic field of 0.5 T, shielding it and its court of exomoons (if present) from the dual stellar winds.

TYC 2483-160-1, 2MASS J08343881+3133147, Gaia DR2 709709093301608448, Gaia DR1 709709089004925440, GSC 02483-00160, TIC 172900988, Gaia DR3 709709093301608448

• Gakis, D. and Gourgouliatos, K.N., 2023. Orbits of the TOI-1338 and TIC-172900988 systems. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 519(3), pp.3832-3842.
  
• Georgakarakos, N., 2022. Dynamics and habitability of the TESS circumbinary systems TOI-1338 and TIC-172900988. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 511(3), pp.4396-4403.
  
• Kostov, V.B., Powell, B.P., Orosz, J.A., Welsh, W.F., Cochran, W., Collins, K.A., Endl, M., Hellier, C., Latham, D.W., MacQueen, P. and Pepper, J., 2021. TIC 172900988: a transiting circumbinary planet detected in one sector of TESS data. The Astronomical Journal, 162(6), p.234.