Three days into the internship
Cukier joined the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in the summer of 2019 as an intern. The job was to sift brightness variations in stars recorded by TESS, NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, and circulated through Planet Hunters TESS, a citizen science project in which volunteers eyeball light curves that automated pipelines may have skipped.
About three days into my internship, I saw a signal from a system called TOI 1338, he told NASA. His first reading was that the dip in light came from one star passing in front of the other, a stellar eclipse rather than a planet. The timing did not fit that explanation. It fitted a third body, orbiting both of them.
What TOI 1338 b is
The planet sits about 1,300 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation Pictor. It is roughly 6.9 times the size of Earth, which places it between Neptune and Saturn, and it orbits two stars at once: one about 10 per cent more massive than the Sun, the other cooler, dimmer and around a third of the Sun's mass. The two stars circle each other every fifteen days.
That double motion is what makes the planet awkward to detect. Its transits arrive irregularly, between every 93 and 95 days, and vary in both depth and duration because the stars are themselves moving across the line of sight. Only the transits across the larger star are visible; those across the smaller one are too faint for TESS to register. Automated transit-hunting software looks for a regular, repeating dip, which is precisely what a circumbinary planet refuses to produce, and this is why a human eye found it.
A first for TESS
TOI 1338 b was the first circumbinary planet found by TESS, which launched to survey almost the whole sky for transiting worlds. Such planets are rare finds: NASA's earlier Kepler mission, which stared at a single patch of sky for years, identified twelve of them across ten systems.
The discovery was presented on 6 January during a panel at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Honolulu, and Cukier was a co-author on the paper alongside scientists from Goddard, San Diego State University, the University of Chicago and other institutions. Co-authorship is the substantive part of the story: a high school student was not thanked in an acknowledgement but credited on the result.
The window that closes
NASA's 2020 account added a detail that gives the find an expiry date. The system's orbital geometry is stable for at least ten million years, but the angle at which Earth views it shifts, and after November 2023 the transits would stop being visible for about eight years before returning.
That is a useful reminder of how much of exoplanet astronomy depends on alignment rather than existence. The planet does not go anywhere. It simply stops crossing the face of its star from our vantage point, and a discovery that took a fresh pair of eyes to make cannot be re-made from the same method until the geometry comes back around.
What is documented, and what is not
Firm: Cukier was a junior at Scarsdale High School in New York; he interned at NASA Goddard in the summer of 2019; he spotted the TOI 1338 signal about three days in while reviewing TESS data shared through Planet Hunters TESS; the planet is about 6.9 times Earth's size, 1,300 light-years away in Pictor, orbiting two stars that circle each other every fifteen days; the result was announced on 6 January 2020 at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Honolulu with Cukier as a co-author.
Not documented, in the source used here: his birth year or exact age, how he obtained the internship, where he went to university, and what he has worked on since 2020. The NASA release is a discovery announcement, not a profile, and it is precise about the planet and brief about the person.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cannan Huey-You | United States | Presenting research on a Milky Way gas cloud at the American Astronomical… | Age 11 |
| Franklin Wang | United States | He pointed a machine-learning model at public telescope archives and six u | Age 17 |
| Wolf Cukier | United States | Spotting TOI 1338 b, TESS's first circumbinary planet | — |
| Pranav Sivakumar | United States | Two years after losing a spelling bee on cyanophycean, he was hunting lens | — |
| Ana Humphrey | United States | First place, 2019 Regeneron Science Talent Search | — |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- A junior at Scarsdale High School, New York, interning at NASA Goddard in summer 2019
- Spotted the TOI 1338 signal about three days into the internship, in TESS data shared via Planet Hunters TESS
- TOI 1338 b was TESS's first circumbinary planet; Kepler had found twelve across ten systems
- Announced 6 January 2020 at the American Astronomical Society meeting; Cukier is a co-author
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- Birth year and exact age are not given in the release
- How the internship was obtained is not described
- Nothing documented about his university or work after 2020
Questions people ask about Wolf Cukier
What did Wolf Cukier discover?
TOI 1338 b, the first circumbinary planet found by NASA's TESS mission: a world about 6.9 times the size of Earth orbiting two stars 1,300 light-years away in the constellation Pictor.
How old was he?
NASA describes him as a junior at Scarsdale High School when he began the internship in summer 2019. His birth year is not stated in the release.
How quickly did he find it?
About three days into the internship. In his own words: about three days into my internship, I saw a signal from a system called TOI 1338.
Did he think it was a planet straight away?
No. He first took the dip in brightness for one star eclipsing the other, then found the timing did not fit that explanation.
Was he credited on the paper?
Yes. NASA names him as a co-author alongside scientists from Goddard, San Diego State University and the University of Chicago.
Why are planets with two suns hard to find?
Their transits are irregular, arriving every 93 to 95 days and varying in depth and duration because the stars move too. Automated searches look for regular repeating dips, so such signals slip through.
Where is Wolf Cukier now?
The NASA release does not say, and no later source was used for this page.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Wolf’s story?
How long into his NASA internship did Wolf Cukier spot the signal?
What is unusual about TOI 1338 b?
How far away is the system?
Sources
- NASA's TESS Mission Uncovers Its 1st World With Two Stars — NASA, 2020-01-07
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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