Ground Based Observations for TESS Object TOI 5938-01 - Light Curve Follow-Up

The goal of this paper was to confirm and further clarify the validity and the details of Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) exoplanet candidate TOI 5938-01. Because of the abundance of false positive exoplanet detections, it is necessary to further support TESS [4] data with ground-based observations. To do this, we took data obtained by the George Mason University (GMU) to produce a lightcurve using AstroImageJ (AIJ) to assess TOI 5938-01’s status as an exoplanet. Using AIJ, we found there was indeed a transit 0.02 days Barycentric Dynamical Time (TDB) off from the predicted transit. Further, the Near Eclipsing Binary (NEB) test came back negative, with all flagged NEBs manually declared as false positives. While this is encouraging, there was a significant portion of bleeding in data between the ingress and the egress of the supposed transit, hence making it difficult to truly confirm its status as an exoplanet. Using TESS and other ground-based observational data, we were able to classify this target as a hot mini-Neptune. It is recommended that future ground-based observations be conducted to obtain valid data during the supposed transit, matching TESS’s transit depth, thereby changing these results from inconclusive to positive.