Canadian-French Hawaii Telescope transit observations show super-earth is probably a mini-neptune
Ray Jay reports from Torino that his group has CFHT observations on GJ 1214b transits, suggesting it has a H/He atmosphere, and is therefore probably not a "super-earth", but more likely an ice giant with neptune like atmosphere.
This is interesting, suggesting indirectly the planet migrated from beyond the ice line and did some gas accretion onto its core before reaching the inner system.
Looking forward to seeing the paper.
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Well that makes claims for the habitability of planet "d" in the Gliese 581 system somewhat shaky: the planet could be another mini-Neptune. No oceans here, move along!
Interesting, given that there was a claim at DPS last week of data on the same object claiming to rule out a standard H/He
atmosphere...
from Sada et al, or something more recent?
How big does a terrestrial planet have to get before it can start accreting He?