Technology and Scienceupdated 18m ago2 min read
Archive photo · 4 November 2017Astronomers Report TOI-2535b Stops Transiting Its Star, Vanishing From TESS Data
3 Other1 West Asian1 Western MainstreamPhoto: Orbital ATK / NASA / US federal government, Public domain · Cropped for layout
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TOI-2535b, a hot Jupiter, stops transiting its host star per TESS data. Disappearance attributed to gravitational influence from an unseen neighboring planet.
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Transits vanish after seven years
Astronomers watched the hot Jupiter TOI-2535b transit its host star TOI-2535 for about seven years, but the planet “simply stopped showing up” in the transit data. The transits had been so regular that researchers could use timing variations to detect additional planets, until the timing stopped matching the expected schedule. University of California, Los Angeles astronomer Samuel Yee and colleagues reported that TOI-2535b “has stopped passing in front of its star,” making it the first confirmed planet around a single star whose transits have been directly observed to disappear.
“On Monday, researchers reported on an exoplanet that simply stopped showing up.”
TESS data from early 2026 showed no sign of a transit, after the planet’s path shifted steadily toward the stellar edge and became grazing before disappearing entirely. The transits could shift by as much as six hours, a pattern it linked to gravitational interactions with another planet that did not show up in TESS data.
Invisible neighbor tilts the orbit
Modeling of timing and shape changes, together with radial-velocity measurements from the NEID spectrograph on the WIYN 3.5-m telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, suggested a nearby companion of roughly Saturn mass or greater. The orbits appear tilted relative to each other by at least about 5 degrees, causing their orbital planes to precess like wobbling tops with periods of decades. The invisible neighbor’s gravity continually pulls on TOI-2535b, making its orbit wobble “like a spinning top about to fall.”
Scientists do not believe TOI-2535b has been destroyed, and instead argue that the planet’s orbit changed due to the gravitational influence of another undiscovered planet. The second planet appears to orbit in a slightly different plane, so it does not pass between its host star and Earth.
Return could take decades
Researchers expect TOI-2535b will return to the observation field within a period of 30 to 50 years, when its orbital movement again allows it to transit in front of its star from Earth’s perspective.
The next transit of TOI-2535b is not expected for another 30 to 50 years, while its hidden neighbor might appear sooner if its trajectory becomes suitable for viewing.
The planet’s impact parameter changed at about 0.16 per year, described as the fastest such change ever seen for an exoplanet around a single star.
Dr. Yee said, “Because TOI-2535b has a close neighbor, it probably migrated by slowly spiraling in instead of getting flung in,” linking the system to a formation channel that “doesn’t happen very often.”
The study was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on November 9, 2026, and it cited the paper “A TESS Disappearing Act: The Vanishing Transits of TOI-2535 b.”