Tokyo Tech News | 2018 Mar 14
Scientists report the existence of 15 new planets — including one ‘super-Earth' that could harbor liquid water — orbiting small, cool stars near our solar system. These stars, known as red dwarfs, are of enormous interest for studies of planetary formation and evolution.
A research team led by Teruyuki Hirano of Tokyo Institute of Technology's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences has validated 15 exoplanets orbiting red dwarf systems.
One of the brightest red dwarfs, K2-155 that is around 200 light years away from Earth, has three transiting super-Earths, which are slightly bigger than our own planet. Of those three super-Earths, the outermost planet, K2-155d, with a radius 1.6 times that of Earth, could be within the host star's habitable zone).
The findings, published in the form of two papers in The Astronomical Journal, are based on data from NASA Kepler spacecraft's second mission, K2, and follow-up observations using ground-based telescopes, including the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii and the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) in Spain. ...
Exoplanets around Low-mass Stars Unveiled by K2 - Teruyuki Hirano et al
- Astronomical Journal 155(3):127 (Mar 2018) DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/aaa9c1
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1710.03239 > 09 Oct 2017 (v1), 19 Jan 2018 (v2)
- Astronomical Journal 155(3):124 (Mar 2018) DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/aaaa6e
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1801.06957 > 22 Jan 2018 (v1), 24 Jan 2018 (v2)