TESS Archives

Schematic view of the seven planetary systems studied in this work. In the upper panel, the location on the x-axis shows the orbital semi-major axis of the planets in question, on a linear scale, with the horizontal lines reaching out from the planet showing the range of its orbit from pericentre to apocentre. The size of the marker for each planet gives the observed radius, as presented in the discovery work, whilst the colour of the marker gives the measured mass for the planet. In the case of the planets orbiting HD 63433, no measured mass has been obtained to date, and we therefore plot an estimated mass for the two planets in that system, based on Figure 3 of Chen & Kipping (2017). In the case of TOI 1670 b, the mass given is an upper limit. The lower panel presents most of the same information (mass, radius, etc.), but shows the separation of the planetary systems in terms of their orbital periods, with the period of the inner planet in each system set to unity. The parent stars are shown sized relative to one another, but not to scale with their planets, and their colour in the plot denotes their effective temperatures, Teff. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

The Search For The Inbetweeners: How Packed Are TESS Planetary Systems?

by Keith CowingNovember 7, 2024November 7, 2024

In this work, we examine seven systems discovered by TESS, to see whether there is any room in those systems for an additional planet (or several) to lurk unseen between […]

Stability analysis of the TOI-561 planetary system. For fixed initial conditions (Table 2), the parameter space of the system is explored by varying the orbital period and the eccentricity of planet- 𝑓 . The step size is 0.25 day in the orbital period and 0.0025 in the eccentricity. For each initial condition, the system is integrated over 10 000 yr, and a stability indicator is calculated, which involved a frequency analysis of the mean longitude of the inner planet. The chaotic diffusion is measured by the variation in the main frequency. Red points correspond to highly unstable orbits, while blue points correspond to orbits that are likely to be stable on Gyr timescales. The black curve corresponds to 𝐾 = 1.88 m/s and the black dot shows the values of the best fit solution (Table 2). -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Architecture Of TOI-561 Planetary System

by Keith CowingOctober 27, 2024October 27, 2024

We present new observations from CHEOPS and TESS to clarify the architecture of the planetary system hosted by the old Galactic thick disk star TOI-561.

LEFT Panel: Contrast curves obtained from Gemini North ‘Alopeke and Gemini South Zorro instruments. Insets showcase 832 nm reconstructed images, highlighting the increased contrasts achieved with Zorro on Gemini South due to better seeing conditions and a longer total integration time. No close companion star was detected within the achieved 5σ magnitude contrast curves and angular limits from the 8-m diffraction limit out to 1.2 ′′. At the distance of TOI-4364, these limits correspond to spatial separations ranging from 0.88 − 52.8 AU. RIGHT Panel: SOAR sensitivity curve taken on October 18, 2021. The 5σ sensitivity limits are shown out to 3.15′′, corresponding to a projected separation of 138.1 AU. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report

TESS Hunt for Young and Maturing Exoplanets (THYME) XII: A Young Mini-Neptune on the Upper Edge of the Radius Valley in the Hyades Cluster

by Keith CowingOctober 17, 2024September 18, 2025

We present the discovery and characterization of TOI-4364 b, a young mini-Neptune in the tidal tails of the Hyades cluster, identified through TESS transit observations and ground-based follow-up photometry.

Mass-radius diagram for TOI-1266 b (triangle) and c (square), with updated measurements from this work (blue markers) compared to C24 (gray markers). Filled circles represent all small (< 3 R⊕) planets orbiting M dwarfs (T∗ < 3900 K) with masses and radii measured to better than 3σ, based on the NASA Exoplanet Archive list of confirmed planets as of Aug 23 2024. The predicted equilibrium temperatures of the planets are indicated by the point color. For comparison, we also plot Earth-like water-rich mass-radius curves from Aguichine et al. (2021) and pure iron, Earthlike, and rocky iso-density curves from Zeng et al. (2016). -- astro-ph.EP

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Tidally Heated Sub-Neptunes, Refined Planetary Compositions, and Confirmation of a Third Planet in the TOI-1266 System

by Keith CowingSeptember 27, 2024September 27, 2024

TOI-1266 is a benchmark system of two temperate (< 450 K) sub-Neptune-sized planets orbiting a nearby M dwarf exhibiting a rare inverted architecture with a larger interior planet.

tpfplotter target pixel file (TPF) image of TOI-406 as in Sector 3. The red squares correspond to the TESS aperture used to compute the photometry, the size of the red circles represent the Gaia DR3 (Gaia Collaboration et al. 2023) magnitudes of the stars. TOI-406 is positioned at the center (star 1). Star 2 is a G = 16.887 mag star which contribution to the aperture flux was taken into account by the SPOC pipeline by calculating the crowding metric and subtracting the corresponding percentage (< 0.14 percent in all four sectors) of the median flux level to account for dilution. The TPF of all sectors are shown in Appendix A. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gaia Mission, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Characterisation of TOI-406 as Showcase of the THIRSTEE program: A 2-Planet System Straddling the M-dwarf Density Gap

by Keith CowingSeptember 19, 2024November 16, 2024

The exoplanet sub-Neptune population currently poses a conundrum. Are small-size planets volatile-rich cores without atmosphere, or are they rocky cores surrounded by H-He envelope? To test the different hypotheses from […]

NIR AO imaging and sensitivity curve for TOI 5713 (Keck) and TOI 6002 (Palomar). Inset: Images of the central portion of the data. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

TESS Discovery of Two Super-Earths Orbiting the M-dwarf Stars TOI-6002 and TOI-5713 Near The Radius Valley

by Keith CowingSeptember 17, 2024September 17, 2024

We present the validation of two TESS super-Earth candidates transiting the mid-M dwarfs TOI-6002 and TOI-5713 every 10.90 and 10.44 days, respectively.

Location of the validated and non-validated planet candidates in the period-radius diagram. The red polygons show the non-validated candidates, the dark-green polygons show the validated planets, and the orange polygons show the candidates which validation status is only suggestive. The grey circles show the population of all validated planets with radius uncertainties below 10%, and the blue circles highlight those planets orbiting M-type stars. The blue-shaded region shows the Neptune desert as defined by Mazeh et al. (2016). However, in recent years, this region has become more populated, and the boundaries of the desert do not match the typical definitions any longer. Thus, we suggest the pink-shaded area, where the scarcity of planets is noteworthy, as an updated definition of the Neptune desert based on the current population of known planets. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Validation Of Up To Seven TESS Planet Candidates Through Multi-colour Transit Photometry Using MuSCAT2 Data

by Keith CowingSeptember 12, 2024September 12, 2024

The TESS mission searches for transiting exoplanets by monitoring the brightness of hundreds of thousands of stars across the entire sky.

Magnetic field analysis for the star 2M07590587+1523294. The left panels show the four Fe I lines used in the modeling: black dots are the observed APOGEE spectrum, red dashed lines are synthetic profiles computed without a magnetic field, and dark blue lines are our best fits obtained from the MCMC modeling. The right panel is a corner plot that presents the median and uncertainties (from 16th and 84th percentiles) of the derived parameters, which includes filling factors from magnetic fields between 2 and 6 kG in steps of 2 kG. We also show the final magnetic field result and its uncertainties. -- astro-ph.SR

Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Magnetic Fields, Electromagnetism, bioelectricity,, Radiation, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Status Report

Magnetic Fields in a Sample of Planet-hosting M Dwarf Stars from Kepler, K2, and TESS Observed by APOGEE

by Keith CowingSeptember 11, 2024September 11, 2024

Stellar magnetic fields have a major impact on space weather around exoplanets orbiting low-mass stars. From an analysis of Zeeman-broadened Fe I lines measured in near-infrared SDSS/APOGEE spectra, mean magnetic […]

Super-Earth occurrence for Kepler (black circles) and K2 (gray circles), TESS data assuming all candidates are real (teal square), and 99.7% confidence intervals to calculate the upper limits for TESS data assuming all candidates are false positives (teal triangles) as a function of metallicity. The [−0.25, −0.5] bin occurrence rates are offset horizontally for visual clarity. The best-fit power-law trend line for the Kepler and K2 data (yellow) is displayed and extrapolated to [Fe/H] = −0.75 showing the 1σ uncertainties (Zink et al. 2023). We show the combined best-fit exponential trend line for Kepler, K2, and TESS (purple; Equation (6)) including the 1σ uncertainties. Each metallicity bin is indicated by gray dashed lines. Within the [−0.75, −1] bin, there is insufficient data to further constrain the super-Earth occurrence rate as a function of metallicity (denoted by the gray hatched region). -- The Astronomical Journal

Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report

Formation Of Super-Earths Proven To Be Limited Near Metal-poor Stars

by Keith CowingSeptember 10, 2024September 10, 2024

In a new study, astronomers report novel evidence regarding the limits of planet formation, finding that after a certain point, planets larger than Earth have difficulty forming near low-metallicity stars.

Target pixel file for TOI-6651 in sector 17 (on the left) and sector 57 (on the right) generated with tpfplotter (Aller et al. 2020). The squared region is the aperture mask used in the photometry, whereas the size of the individual red dot is the magnitude contrast (∆m) from TOI6651. The position of TOI-6651 is marked with “1”. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Discovery and Characterization of a Dense sub-Saturn TOI-6651b

by Keith CowingSeptember 5, 2024September 5, 2024

We report the discovery and characterization of a transiting sub-Saturn exoplanet TOI-6651b using PARAS-2 spectroscopic observations. The host, TOI-6651 (mV≈10.2), is a sub-giant, metal-rich G-type star with [Fe/H]=0.225+0.044−0.045, Teff=5940±110 K, […]

TESS

The Search For The Inbetweeners: How Packed Are TESS Planetary Systems?

Architecture Of TOI-561 Planetary System

TESS Hunt for Young and Maturing Exoplanets (THYME) XII: A Young Mini-Neptune on the Upper Edge of the Radius Valley in the Hyades Cluster

Tidally Heated Sub-Neptunes, Refined Planetary Compositions, and Confirmation of a Third Planet in the TOI-1266 System

Characterisation of TOI-406 as Showcase of the THIRSTEE program: A 2-Planet System Straddling the M-dwarf Density Gap

TESS Discovery of Two Super-Earths Orbiting the M-dwarf Stars TOI-6002 and TOI-5713 Near The Radius Valley

Validation Of Up To Seven TESS Planet Candidates Through Multi-colour Transit Photometry Using MuSCAT2 Data

Magnetic Fields in a Sample of Planet-hosting M Dwarf Stars from Kepler, K2, and TESS Observed by APOGEE

Formation Of Super-Earths Proven To Be Limited Near Metal-poor Stars

Discovery and Characterization of a Dense sub-Saturn TOI-6651b

Relevance of the Avalon Assemblage as an Astrobiological Analog for Icy Ocean Worlds

The Climate and Potential Habitability of a Warm and Oxygenated Mars

Variable X-ray flux May Explain Variable Helium Escape From The Habitable-zone Exoplanet LHS 1140b

Spacetime Contactability in Galactic Civilization Networks: Contact Counts and Percolation

Surprisingly Enriched CO and CH4 in Halley-type Comet 13P/Olbers: Clues to Its Interstellar Heritage