University of Toronto | 2016 July 14
[c][attachment=0]c0111195.jpg[/attachment][/c][hr][/hr]After analyzing four years of Kepler space telescope observations, astronomers from the University of Toronto have given us our clearest understanding yet of a class of exoplanets called “Warm Jupiters”, showing that many have unexpected planetary companions.
The team’s analysis ... provides strong evidence of the existence of two distinct types of Warm Jupiters, each with their own formation and dynamical history.
The two types include those that have companions and thus, likely formed where we find them today; and those with no companions that likely migrated to their current positions. ...
It has generally been thought that Warm Jupiters didn’t form where we find them today; they are too close to their parent stars to have accumulated large, gas-giant-like atmospheres. So, it appeared likely that they formed in the outer reaches of their planetary systems and migrated inward to their current positions, and might in fact continue their inward journey to become Hot Jupiters. On such a migration, the gravity of any Warm Jupiter would have disturbed neighbouring or companion planets, ejecting them from the system.
But, instead of finding “lonely”, companion-less Warm Jupiters, the team found that 11 of the 27 targets they studied have companions ranging in size from Earth-like to Neptune-like. ...
Warm Jupiters Are Less Lonely than Hot Jupiters - Chelsea Huang, Yanqin Wu, Amaury Triaud
- Astrophysical Journal 825(2):98 (10 July 2016) DOI: 10.3847/0004-637X/825/2/98
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1601.05095 > 19 Jan 2016 (v1), 27 Apr 2016 (v2)