Exoplanets & Exomoons

A Hot Terrestrial Planet Orbiting The Bright M Dwarf L 168-9 Unveiled By TESS

By Keith Cowing
Press Release
astro-ph.EP
January 27, 2020
Filed under
A Hot Terrestrial Planet Orbiting The Bright M Dwarf L 168-9 Unveiled By TESS
Hot terrestrial planet
NASA

We report the detection of a transiting super-Earth-sized planet (R=1.39+-0.09 Rearth) in a 1.4-day orbit around L 168-9 (TOI-134), a bright M1V dwarf (V=11, K=7.1) located at 25.15+-0.02 pc.

The host star was observed in the first sector of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission and, for confirmation and planet mass measurement, was followed up with ground-based photometry, seeing-limited and high-resolution imaging, and precise radial velocity (PRV) observations using the HARPS and PFS spectrographs. Combining the TESS data and PRV observations, we find the mass of L168-9 b to be 4.60+-0.56 Mearth, and thus the bulk density to be 1.74+0.44-0.33 times larger than that of the Earth. The orbital eccentricity is smaller than 0.21 (95% confidence).

This planet is a Level One Candidate for the TESS Mission’s scientific objective – to measure the masses of 50 small planets – and is one of the most observationally accessible terrestrial planets for future atmospheric characterization.

N. Astudillo-Defru, R. Cloutier, S. X. Wang, J. Teske, R. Brahm, C. Hellier, G. Ricker, R. Vanderspek, D. Latham, S. Seager, J. N. Winn, J. M. Jenkins, K. A. Collins, K. G. Stassun, C. Ziegler, J. M. Almenara, D. R. Anderson, E. Artigau, X. Bonfils, F. Bouchy, C. Briceño, R. P. Butler, D. Charbonneau, D. M. Conti, J. Crane, I. J .M. Crossfield, M. Davies, X. Delfosse, R. F. Díaz, R. Doyon, D. Dragomir, J. D. Eastman, N. Espinoza, Z. Essack, F. Feng, P. Figueira, T. Forveille, T. Gan, A. Glidden, N. Guerrero, R. Hart, Th. Henning, E. P. Horch, G. Isopi, J. S. Jenkins, A. Jordán, J. F. Kielkopf, N. Law, C. Lovis, F. Mallia, A. W. Mann, J. R. de Medeiros, C. Melo, R. E. Mennickent, L. Mignon, F. Murgas, D. A. Nusdeo, F. Pepe, H. M. Relles, M. Rose, N. C. Santos, D. Ségransan, S. Shectman, A. Shporer, J. C. Smith, P. Torres, S. Udry, J. Villasenor, J .G. Winters, G. Zhou
(Submitted on 24 Jan 2020)

Comments: 14 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in astronomy and Astrophysics
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
Cite as: arXiv:2001.09175 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2001.09175v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Nicola Astudillo-Defru
[v1] Fri, 24 Jan 2020 19:48:32 UTC (6,172 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.09175
Astrobiology

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻