Year: 2011
Type: article
Abstract: NASA's Kepler Mission uses transit photometry to determine the frequency of Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone of Sun-like stars. The mission reached a milestone toward meeting that goal: the discovery of its first rocky planet, Kepler-10b. Two distinct sets of transit events were detected: (1) a 152 ± 4 ppm dimming lasting 1.811 ± 0.024 hr with ephemeris T [BJD] =2454964.57375 +0.00060 −0.00082 + N *0.837495 +0.000004 −0.000005 days and (2) a 376 ± 9 ppm dimming lasting 6.86 ± 0.07 hr with ephemeris T [BJD] =2454971.6761 +0.0020 −0.0023 + N *45.29485 +0.00065 −0.00076 days. Statistical tests on the photometric and pixel flux time series established the viability of the planet candidates triggering ground-based follow-up observations. Forty precision Doppler measurements were used to confirm that the short-period transit event is due to a planetary companion. The parent star is bright enough for asteroseismic analysis. Photometry was collected at 1 minute cadence for >4 months from which we detected 19 distinct pulsation frequencies. Modeling the frequencies resulted in precise knowledge of the fundamental stellar properties. Kepler-10 is a relatively old (11.9 ± 4.5 Gyr) but otherwise Sun-like main-sequence star with T eff = 5627 ± 44 K, M ⋆ = 0.895 ± 0.060 M ☉ , and R ⋆ = 1.056 ± 0.021 R ☉ . Physical models simultaneously fit to the transit light curves and the precision Doppler measurements yielded tight constraints on the properties of Kepler-10b that speak to its rocky composition: M P = 4.56 +1.17 −1.29 M ⊕ , R P = 1.416 +0.033 −0.036 R ⊕ , and ρ P = 8.8 +2.1 −2.9 g cm −3 . Kepler-10b is the smallest transiting exoplanet discovered to date.
Source: The Astrophysical Journal
Authors: Natalie M. Batalha, William J. Borucki, Stephen T. Bryson, Lars A. Buchhave, Douglas A. Caldwell, Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard, David Ciardi, Edward W. Dunham, Francois Fressin, Thomas N. Gautier, Ronald L. Gilliland, Michael R. Haas, Steve B. Howell, Jon M. Jenkins, Hans Kjeldsen, David G. Koch, David W. Latham, Jack J. Lissauer, Geoffrey W. Marcy, Jason F. Rowe, Dimitar D. Sasselov, Sara Seager, Jason H. Steffen, Guillermo Torres, Gibor S. Basri, Timothy M. Brown, David Charbonneau, Jessie Christiansen, Bruce Clarke, William D. Cochran, Andrea Dupree, Daniel C. Fabrycky, Debra Fischer, Eric B. Ford, Jonathan Fortney, Forrest R. Girouard, Matthew J. Holman, John Johnson, Howard Isaacson, Todd C. Klaus, Pavel Machalek, Althea V. Moorehead, Robert C. Morehead, Darin Ragozzine, Peter Tenenbaum, Joseph Twicken, Samuel Quinn, Jeffrey VanCleve, Lucianne M. Walkowicz, William F. Welsh, Edna Devore, Alan Gould
Institutions: San Jose State University, Ames Research Center, Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research, NSF NCAR High Altitude Observatory, Aarhus University, California Institute of Technology, NASA Exoplanet Science Institute, Lowell Observatory, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Space Telescope Science Institute, University of California, Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network, The University of Texas at Austin, Yale University, University of Florida, University of California, Santa Cruz, San Diego State University
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2140385666