From A University of California Santa Barbara press release: International Team of Scientists Reports Discovery of a New Planet
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– An international team of scientists, including several who are affiliated with UC Santa Barbara, has discovered a new planet the size of Jupiter. The finding is published in the March 18 issue of the journal Nature.
The planet, called CoRoT-9b, was discovered by using the CoRoT space telescope satellite, operated by the French space agency, The Centre National d’Études Spatiales, or CNES. The newly discovered planet orbits a star similar to our sun and is located in the constellation Serpens Cauda, at a distance of 1500 light-years from Earth.
The European-led discovery involved 60 astronomers worldwide. The team included UCSB postdoctoral fellow Avi Shporer, who also works with the UCSB-affiliated Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGT), based in Goleta, California. Three more LCOGT scientists –– Tim Lister, Rachel Street, and Marton Hidas –– also contributed.
“CoRoT-9b is the first transiting extrasolar planet that is definitely similar to a planet in our solar system, namely Jupiter,” said Shporer. “What is special about this planet is that it transits a star, and it is a temperate planet. It has great potential for future studies concerning its physical characteristics and atmosphere.” The planet is mostly made of hydrogen and helium, but may contain up to 20 Earth masses of heavier elements including rock and water under high pressure. It thus appears to be very similar to the solar system’s giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn.
A transit occurs when a celestial body passes in front of its host star and blocks some of the star’s light. This type of eclipse causes a small drop in the apparent brightness of the star and enables the planet’s mass, diameter, density, and temperature to be deduced. CoRoT-9b takes 95 Earth days to orbit its star. This is about 10 times longer than that of any planet previously discovered by the transit method.
The CoRoT satellite identified the planet after 150 days of continuous observation in the summer of 2008. The discovery of the planet was verified by ground-based telescopes. Those include the two-meter Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Faulkes Telescope North (FTN), located on Mt. Haleakala on the Hawaiian island of Maui. “Since a transit occurs only once every 95 days, FTN was at the right place at the right time to observe the transit in September 2009, thereby confirming the CoRoT detection,” said Shporer.
He explained that while temperate gas giants are so far the largest known group of planets, CoRoT-9b is the first transiting planet of this kind. The discovery will lead to a better understanding of such commonly occurring planets and open up a new field of research on the atmospheres of moderate and low temperature planets.
Shporer notes that the study of planets outside our solar system is rapidly progressing. “Only 25 years ago no extrasolar planets were known, and today we know of more than 400,” he said. “Undoubtedly, many more exciting discoveries await in the future.”
The CoRoT space telescope satellite is named for “convection, rotation, and transits.” France, Austria, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Brazil, and the European Space Agency (ESA) contributed to the telescope. It was specifically designed to detect transiting exoplanets and carry out seismological studies of stars. Its results are supplemented by observations from several ground-based telescopes, including the IAC-80 Teide Observatory, Canary Islands, Spain; the Canada France Hawaii Telescope, Hawaii; the Isaac Newton Telescope, Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, Canary Islands, Spain; the Swiss Euler telescope, Chile; the Faulkes Telescope North, Hawaii, part of the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network; and, the ESO 3.6m telescope, Chile.
The Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network is constructing a network of telescopes for monitoring variable stars and explosions on the sky. In a long-term collaboration with UC Santa Barbara, LCOGT has already constructed the Byrne Observatory at UC’s Sedgwick Reserve and supports collaborative research on extrasolar planets, transients, and supernovae with UCSB scientists.
Avi Shporer received his B.A. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel. He recently began a three-year postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Physics at UCSB, and is affiliated with the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network.
###
What is the brightness amd heat output of CoRot-9B’s star? That is, could an earth-sixed planet orbit it?
Brian G Valentine wrote at 10:04:37:
I’ll take some of your contradictions directed at me Leif, not that one. Star diameters can be inferred from an interferometer, but excepting possibly for the red giant Betelgeuse, stars are points, independently of magnification from Earth, and although “dimming” of a star from eclipse of a rotating object suggests a planet, there are numerous other explanations possible, and if a planet revolves around a star, than that star’s track is a very slightly adjusted helix in the galaxy, and that is the only confirmation that proves it as far as I know.
Jeeze … Are you some kind of moby trying to discredit this site by making crackpot pontifications? There’s a nice writeup on Wikipedia that explains how extrasolar planets are discovered — you can read about the transit method here. You don’t even have to know anything about extrasolar planets to understand how we know the diameters of stars that have been been eclipsed by objects that pass in front of them; you can read about eclipsiong binary stars.
BTW, what the astronomers mean when they say that this is a “temperate” gas giant is that it orbits sufficiently far from the star that it hasn’t been bloated by excess heat (resulting either from stellar irradiance or tidal forces). All of the other transiting planets discovered so far have periods less than six days or so, and are only a few diameters away from their stars — they typically have temperatures of a couple thousand degrees or so at their visible surfaces, and their high temperatures bloat them up to significantly larger than they’d be if they were as cool as Jupiter — some of them up to three or four times Jupiter’s volume. Ths planet has an orbit about the size of Mercury’s in our system, so it’s still rather warm by our standards … but the “surface” temperature is estimated to be less than 500 Kelvin, and it has about the same diameter as Jupiter.
Here’s the reference for the original paper:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7287/abs/nature08856.html
More information on the star and planet here.
OK, let’s try that again with a closed link tag:
Brian G Valentine wrote at 10:04:37:
I’ll take some of your contradictions directed at me Leif, not that one. Star diameters can be inferred from an interferometer, but excepting possibly for the red giant Betelgeuse, stars are points, independently of magnification from Earth, and although “dimming” of a star from eclipse of a rotating object suggests a planet, there are numerous other explanations possible, and if a planet revolves around a star, than that star’s track is a very slightly adjusted helix in the galaxy, and that is the only confirmation that proves it as far as I know.
Jeeze … Are you some kind of moby trying to discredit this site by making crackpot pontifications? There’s a nice writeup on Wikipedia that explains how extrasolar planets are discovered — you can read about the transit method here. You don’t even have to know anything about extrasolar planets to understand how we know the diameters of stars that have been been eclipsed by objects that pass in front of them; you can read about eclipsiong binary stars.
BTW, what the astronomers mean when they say that this is a “temperate” gas giant is that it orbits sufficiently far from the star that it hasn’t been bloated by excess heat (resulting either from stellar irradiance or tidal forces). All of the other transiting planets discovered so far have periods less than six days or so, and are only a few diameters away from their stars — they typically have temperatures of a couple thousand degrees or so at their visible surfaces, and their high temperatures bloat them up to significantly larger than they’d be if they were as cool as Jupiter — some of them up to three or four times Jupiter’s volume. Ths planet has an orbit about the size of Mercury’s in our system, so it’s still rather warm by our standards … but the “surface” temperature is estimated to be less than 500 Kelvin, and it has about the same diameter as Jupiter.
Here’s the reference for the original paper:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7287/abs/nature08856.html
More information on the star and planet here.
There are dozens of Jupiter scale or larger planets orbiting their stars in FAST close in orbits measured in day(s) to weeks.
The discovery has been confirmed by independent observations of transits. Would that climate science made falsifiable, independently verifiable predictions like this.
What’s wicked cool is that the US has had Kepler in heliocentric orbit for a year watching over 100,000 stars in the Cygnus-Lyra section of our Milky Way detecting planets by the same photometry method but with vastly more sensivity. A few years from now when Kepler’s data has been gathered and analyzed we’ll know how special or not special our solar system really is. Science.
Minor point. I wish a word would be coined to replace “planet” for these bodies which orbit other stars.
I have no suggestions, but it is still early in the day for me.
My tulips are sprouting at just the right time. I think things that I can see without a couple million dollar telescope to be much more interesting, and I have naming rights! My tulips name is Abigail. Not that I’m minimizing the importantce of the discovery, just that scientists have detected planets before. Call me when astronuats land there.
Re: Leif Svalgaard (09:37:12)
Sorry, but the story doesn’t jive with my “common sense-o-meter.” Waaay too many assumptions. Just look at the detail they try to provide for an object supposed to be 1500 light years away! May or may not be true, but we’ll never know.
KTWO (12:36:30) :
Minor point. I wish a word would be coined to replace “planet” for these bodies which orbit other stars.
I have no suggestions, but it is still early in the day for me.
I have seen them termed “explanets” before.
Are you some kind of moby trying to discredit this site by making crackpot pontifications?
No I’m not and yes I’m familiar with what Wikipedia says and yes I’m familiar with the errors inherent and yes those errors exceed the errors the errors in trajectory measurements
Leif Svalgaard (09:37:12) :
Have we found a nearby star that doesn’t have any planets?
Suranda, Nick,
The New planet is 1500 light years away in another Solar System.
A very nice discovery, possibly someone will stop in about 2750.
Sometimes I think about those star naming services and how in that grand
imagined future, travelers will stop at such a place and say something like ” Captain we have arrived at “Grandma’s Star” and on course for
“Timmy’s” planet .” Should be a hoot.
1500 Light Years? We only have a million and a half Earth years before we’re toast. We need something firmer and closer and with an atmosphere, a real clean one. Let’s keep working. there has to be something out there we can live on;-)
KTWO, they are called ‘exoplanets’ or extrasolar planet.
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/ is a cool link that explores the 400 odd that have been discovered.
“What’s wicked cool is that the US has had Kepler in heliocentric orbit for a year watching over 100,000 stars in the Cygnus-Lyra section of our Milky Way detecting planets by the same photometry method but with vastly more sensivity. A few years from now when Kepler’s data has been gathered and analyzed we’ll know how special or not special our solar system really is. Science.”
I was just reading about the Kepler Mission on the Wiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_Mission
You have a large gas giant orbiting near a star.
As the star continues along the main sequence, it starts running out of hydrogen to fuse, fuses helium and heavier elements, and swells up in a red giant phase.
As it does so, will it engulf and consume the gas giant? If so, will the planet still be a “gas” giant, with the gas (mostly) still there?
If so, will the infusion of a fresh supply of hydrogen and helium cause the star to flare up?
NickB. (10:12:00) :
Discovered by an international team, huh? Who wants to bet this story would be different if this had been discovered by a US American
“Imperialist astronomers claim new planet U.S. territory. Giant planet named Terra Barbara, for the UC Santa Barabara scientists who headed up the project…” UN News and World Report
Doug in Seattle (08:55:44) :
It seem to be a rather fast orbit for gas giant.
Yes. About 40 times faster than jupiter. About the same as little Mercury.
I claim this planet in the name of … me!
Bones (15:37:19) :
“Imperialist astronomers claim new planet U.S. territory. Giant planet named Terra Barbara, for the UC Santa Barabara scientists who headed up the project…” UN News and World Report
As a new planet, perhaps we can think of it as a potential Second Eden, at which point we can say it was named after Barbara Eden. And who can complain about that?
— “Undoubtedly, many more exciting discoveries await in the future.” —
Statistically speakin’, and hiding the decline, many more unexciting discoveries await.
Excitement falls off with the inverse square of the P.R Proxy AKA – PAYOLLA.
How many unexciting discoveries await? We can’t currently tell, and its a travesty that we can’t.
Don’t tell the skeptics this, their endless FOI’s interrupt us filling out the forms requesting more funding, to find the Exciting discoveries.
Once we link gas giants too Telescopes reflecting heat into space, we can finally rest, the debate is over. Manmade Cosmic Change is a fact.
Now back to writing my romance novel….
I, for one, welcome our CoRotian overlords!
RE: KTWO (12:36:30) : “Minor point. I wish a word would be coined to replace “planet” for these bodies which orbit other stars.”
I note that the Wikipedia article on ‘Extrasolar Planets’ uses the shortened term ‘exoplanet.’
Brian G Valentine (10:04:37) :
as far as I know.
Just show how little you know. Try to learn some more about this. It is fascinating stuff.
D. King (11:30:40) :
Could the giant raise a tide that affects the detected light?
Not in any way large enough to be a problem.
Tim McHenry (13:47:41) :
“common sense-o-meter.”
Which has just failed you, big time.
the detail they try to provide for an object supposed to be 1500 light years away! May or may not be true, but we’ll never know.
We know a lot about stars that are that and much further away.
E. g. for the binary pulsar J0737-3039, the two stars A and B have masses of 1.337 solar masses [A] and 1.250 solar masses [B], and rotation periods of 0.023 seconds and 2.8 seconds respectively.
Brian G Valentine (14:13:39) :
those errors exceed the errors the errors in trajectory measurements
So what are are those errors you so familiar with? Give some number, please?
rbateman (14:22:11) :
Have we found a nearby star that doesn’t have any planets?
We have not found planets around all stars [doesn’t mean they don’t have any, we just haven’t seen them]. In general, we expect planets only around slowly rotating stars because [as far as we know], formation of a planetary system slows down a star’s rotation as angular momentum is transferred to the planets [e.g. by magnetic forces]. In the solar system the planets have 98% of the angular momentum and the Sun is therefore a slow rotator. So, fast rotating stars probably don’t have planets.
tallbloke (16:26:43) :
“It seem to be a rather fast orbit for gas giant.”
Yes. About 40 times faster than jupiter.
There is a selection effect: We can only observe [with today’s instruments] planets that are big and/or close [and therefore fast moving]. So not surprising. If that star had a ‘normal’ Jupiter [size and distance] we couldn’t see it.
Rediculous… seriously you think they can tell the temperature, density and geological make up of this planet? Hogwash. At absolute best they could measure its size. Im suprised, normally skeptic scientists like yourself can be tricked with this tomfoollery.
Brian G Valentine (10:04:37) :
although “dimming” of a star from eclipse of a rotating object suggests a planet
Imagine a solar eclipse. Seen from the Earth, the eclipse begins with a gradual dimming of the Sun as the Moon moves across the disk, then with a few minutes of ‘most dimming’ [for total eclipe], followed by a gradual brightening as the Moon moves off the solar disk. Now, if we view the eclipse from futher away the moon will look smaller and not cover the whole solar disk, but only a smaller part of iy. Here is what a solar eclipse looks like from the STEREO spacecraft: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NASA-solar_eclipse_STEREO-B.ogg
If we move further away the moon will look smaller still and the dimming will be much smaller, but with sensitive enough photometers we might still see it, specially if the Moon was as big as Jupiter [as the star’s planet]. What is new is that we know have instruments sensitive enough to observe even that tiny dimming and so provide direct observation of the eclipse. This has nothing at all to do with trajectories or orbits through the Galaxy. We are just observing an ordinary star eclipse. Aliens on other stars could observe the Moon [or the Earth, or Jupiter] eclipse the Sun the same way [given sensitive enough instruments]. There is no need for you to be skeptical of observations of eclipses, unless you have other reasons for not wanting to see this, like the cardinals that would not look through Galileo’s telescope 🙂