Tom Wagg

Thomas James Wagg (born 30 November 1997) is an English astrophysicist, with interests in massive stars and gravitational waves. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Astronomy from the University of Washington. He is believed to be the youngest person to have discovered a planet.

Early life and education
Wagg was born in Stoke-on-Trent, a green country-side city located in Staffordshire county, England. He attended Newcastle-under-Lyme school, where he attained an A* in all 12 GCSE exams, including astronomy. While in high school, he completed a work experience program at Keele University on an exoplanet search project under Professor Coel Hellier.

He graduated from Harvard College in 2020 with a bachelor’s degree in Physics and Astrophysics and a secondary in Computer Science with the distinction cum laude. While there, his research program spanned luminous red galaxies with Daniel Eisenstein and population genetics with Michael Desai, ultimately culminating in a senior thesis under Selma de Mink on the LISA mission’s ability to detect black hole-neutron star binaries. As an undergraduate, he also served the Harvard Library Judaica Division, pioneering the Alma Booster Chrome Extension used by the department to streamline record-keeping.

Exoplanet discovery
In 2015, Tom discovered a planet during a work experience program for the astrophysics department of Keele University. His work contributed to the Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP), an international consortium of academic institutions that use transit photometry to detect exoplanets. On the third day of his internship, Tom noticed a small irregular dip in the light intensity of a star, a common sign that an orbiting planet is passing between a star and the observation point. In 2016, researchers from the University of Liege and University of Geneva confirmed that fade was caused by a previously unknown exoplanet. Having made the discovery at 15 years old, Tom is thought to be the youngest person to discover a planet.

The planet, located over 2,000 light years away from Earth, was cataloged as WASP-142b, the 142nd planet discovered in the WASP survey. Researchers described the planet as a typical hot Jupiter, similar in size and structure to the largest planet in our solar system but exhibiting a two-day orbit. Inspired by these similarities, Tom indicated that if given the choice, he would have named the planet “Zeus” after the famously thunderous and temperamental Greek counterpart of the Roman god, “Jupiter”.

In interviews, Wagg appeared excited but humble stating, “in a way, some of it comes down to luck… you can be as good as you want and you can still never find one". However, those around him sung praises at his stellar achievement. His physics teacher, Andy Fishburne, described him as “ultra-keen,” which Professor Coel Hellier, the WASP program leader at Keele University, echoed by explaining “Tom is keen to learn about science, so it was easy to train him to look for planets". Fellow classmates and friends shared in the excitement, but his sister, Lucy, remained dubious.

Early career
Wagg is currently pursuing a PhD in Astrophysics at the University of Washington. His interests lie in massive, binary stars and gravitational waves. His notable works include investigating massive double compact objects that are detectable by LISA and producing an open-source Python package called LEGWORK for performing similar studies.

Awards

 * In 2020, he was awarded the Leo Goldberg Prize in Astronomy recognizing excellence in a senior thesis.
 * In 2023, he was selected as a Kavli Summer Fellow.