Yale University | Planet Hunters | 2014 Oct 29
For their latest discovery, Yale astronomers and the Planet Hunter program have found a low-mass, low-density planet with a punctuality problem.
The new planet, called PH3c, is located 2,300 light years from Earth and has an atmosphere loaded with hydrogen and helium. It is described in the Oct. 29 online edition of The Astrophysical Journal.
The elusive orb nearly avoided detection. This is because PH3c has a highly inconsistent orbit time around its sun, due to the gravitational influence of other planets in its system. “On Earth, these effects are very small, only on the scale of one second or so,” said Joseph Schmitt, a Yale graduate student and first author of the paper. “PH3c’s orbital period changed by 10.5 hours in just 10 orbits.”
That inconsistency kept it from being picked up by automated computer algorithms that search stellar light curves and identify regular dips caused by objects passing in front of stars.
Luckily, Planet Hunters came to the rescue. The program, which has found more than 60 planet candidates since 2010, enlists citizen scientists to check survey data from the Kepler spacecraft. Planet Hunters recently unveiled a new website and an expanded scientific mission. ...
Planet Hunters VII. Discovery of a New Low-Mass, Low-Density Planet (PH3 c) Orbiting Kepler-289
with Mass Measurements of Two Additional Planets (PH3 b and d) - Joseph R. Schmitt et al
- Astrophysical Journal 795(2) 167 (2014 Nov 10) DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/795/2/167
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1410.8114 > 29 Oct 2014