1. catdynamics
  2. More interesting planets

More interesting planets

By catdynamics on July 6, 2007.

High mass planets around metal poor red dwarfs, may put small crack in big theory

New planets just put up on exoplanet.eu - from JJ of the California-Carnegie-AAT group. These were mentioned at Santorini, but I don't think I talked specifically about them at the time, not sure if I failed to note the detailed parameters or because they were just "talked about" rather than formally announced. Outer planet solution does not seem to have fully converged yet, but if I recall the discussion something about a Jupiter mass must be out there - it may move a little bit as more data comes in.

GJ317b and GJ371c

M3 red dwarf main eequence star (about 1/4 solar mass) about 10pc away.
Slightly sub-solar metallicty (-0.23).

Masses are 1.2 and 0.8 M_J/sin(i) - and orbital periods are 673 and 2700 days, with eccentricities of ~ 0.2 and 0.4 respectively. Parameters for outer planet are tentative, obviously.

Hm. Bit of a theory buster - high mass planets in wide orbits around a low mass metal poor star...
modulo selections effects, this is hard to arrange.
A few more like this and we'll need to revisit some details in the assumptions of the theory. Again.

Tags
astro

More like this

An Exo- Jupiter Unveiled
The Extreme Solar System conference at Santorini is off with a bang! Number of announcements already in the first session, I'll catch up on the highlights later, and just give the, in my opinion, most interesting. The California-Carnegie-AAT group has a genuine extrasolar Jupiter analog! Jason…
Extreme Solar Systems II: mo' planets
More planet news from the Extreme Solar Systems conference In addition to the Jupier like planet (did I mention that I like that result...?) the California-Carnegie-AAT team has several more long period jovians, possibly with low eccentricity orbits. Looking at known planet hosts, 179 stars, 25 are…
Two Earth Mass Planet
Two Earth Mass Planet found in close orbit around a red dwarf star Gliese 581 is an M3 red dwarf, it has a mass of about a third that of the Sun, slightly lower metal content and is about the same age probably a bit older than the Sun, we think. It is about 20 light years away. Gliese 581 was…
Extreme Solar Systems III: wot? even more planets???
I'm still working my way through my notes from day 1 of the conference... did I mention I have a lots of notes. Actually, by my count, half-way through day 3, I've seen four very interesting announcements that are embargoed, two because of Nature/Science submission issues, which I will of course…