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Register a new userGJ 581 update: Additional Evidence for a Super-Earth in the Habitable Zone
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We present an analysis of the significantly expanded HARPS 2011 radial velocity data set for GJ 581 that was presented by Forveille et al. (2011). Our analysis reaches substantially different conclusions regarding the evidence for a Super-Earth-mass planet in the stars Habitable Zone. We were able to reproduce their reported chi_{ u}^2 and RMS values only after removing some outliers from their models and refitting the trimmed down RV set. A suite of 4000 N-body simulations of their Keplerian model all resulted in unstable systems and revealed that their reported 3.6sigma detection of e=0.32 for the eccentricity of GJ 581e is manifestly incompatible with the systems dynamical stability. Furthermore, their Keplerian model, when integrated only over the time baseline of the observations, significantly increases the chi_{ u}^2 and demonstrates the need for including non-Keplerian orbital precession when modeling this system. We find that a four-planet model with all of the planets on circular or nearly circular orbits provides both an excellent self-consistent fit to their RV data and also results in a very stable configuration. The periodogram of the residuals to a 4-planet all-circular-orbit model reveals significant peaks that suggest one or more additional planets in this system. We conclude that the present 240-point HARPS data set, when analyzed in its entirety, and modeled with fully self-consistent stable orbits, by and of itself does offer significant support for a fifth signal in the data with a period near 32 days. This signal has a False Alarm Probability of <4% and is consistent with a planet of minimum mass of 2.2 Earth-masses, orbiting squarely in the stars Habitable Zone at 0.13 AU, where liquid water on planetary surfaces is a distinct possibility
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We report the detection of GJ 832c, a super-Earth orbiting near the inner edge of the habitable zone of GJ 832, an M dwarf previously known to host a Jupiter analog in a nearly-circular 9.4-year orbit. The combination of precise radial-velocity measurements from three telescopes reveals the presence of a planet with a period of 35.68+/-0.03 days and minimum mass (m sin i) of 5.4+/-1.0 Earth masses. GJ 832c moves on a low-eccentricity orbit (e=0.18+/-0.13) towards the inner edge of the habitable zone. However, given the large mass of the planet, it seems likely that it would possess a massive atmosphere, which may well render the planet inhospitable. Indeed, it is perhaps more likely that GJ 832c is a super-Venus, featuring significant greenhouse forcing. With an outer giant planet and an interior, potentially rocky planet, the GJ 832 planetary system can be thought of as a miniature version of our own Solar system.
GJ 581 is an M dwarf host of a multiplanet system. We use long-baseline interferometric measurements from the CHARA Array, coupled with trigonometric parallax information, to directly determine its physical radius to be $0.299 pm 0.010 R_{odot}$. Literature photometry data are used to perform spectral energy distribution fitting in order to determine GJ 581s effective surface temperature $T_{rm EFF}=3498 pm 56$ K and its luminosity $L=0.01205 pm 0.00024 L_{odot}$. From these measurements, we recompute the location and extent of the systems habitable zone and conclude that two of the planets orbiting GJ 581, planets d and g, spend all or part of their orbit within or just on the edge of the habitable zone.
We re-analyze 4 years of HARPS spectra of the nearby M1.5 dwarf GJ 667C available through the ESO public archive. The new radial velocity (RV) measurements were obtained using a new data analysis technique that derives the Doppler measurement and other instrumental effects using a least-squares approach. Combining these new 143 measurements with 41 additional RVs from the Magellan/PFS and Keck/HIRES spectrometers, reveals 3 additional signals beyond the previously reported 7.2-day candidate, with periods of 28 days, 75 days, and a secular trend consistent with the presence of a gas giant (Period sim 10 years). The 28-day signal implies a planet candidate with a minimum mass of 4.5 Mearth orbiting well within the canonical definition of the stars liquid water habitable zone, this is, the region around the star at which an Earth-like planet could sustain liquid water on its surface. Still, the ultimate water supporting capability of this candidate depends on properties that are unknown such as its albedo, atmospheric composition and interior dynamics. The 75-day signal is less certain, being significantly affected by aliasing interactions among a potential 91-day signal, and the likely rotation period of the star at 105 days detected in two activity indices. GJ 667C is the common proper motion companion to the GJ 667AB binary, which is metal poor compared to the Sun. The presence of a super-Earth in the habitable zone of a metal poor M dwarf in a triple star system, supports the evidence that such worlds should be ubiquitous in the Galaxy.
We report the first ground-based transit observation of K2-3d, a 1.5 R_Earth planet supposedly within the habitable zone around a bright M-dwarf host star, using the Okayama 188 cm telescope and the multi(grz)-band imager MuSCAT. Although the depth of the transit (0.7 mmag) is smaller than the photometric precisions (1.2, 0.9, and 1.2 mmag per 60 s for the g, r, and z bands, respectively), we marginally but consistently identify the transit signal in all three bands, by taking advantage of the transit parameters from K2, and by introducing a novel technique that leverages multi-band information to reduce the systematics caused by second-order extinction. We also revisit previously analyzed Spitzer transit observations of K2-3d to investigate the possibility of systematic offsets in transit timing, and find that all the timing data can be explained well by a linear ephemeris. We revise the orbital period of K2-3d to be 44.55612 pm 0.00021 days, which corrects the predicted transit times for 2019, i.e., the era of the James Webb Space Telescope, by sim80 minutes. Our observation demonstrates that (1) even ground-based, 2 m class telescopes can play an important role in refining the transit ephemeris of small-sized, long-period planets, and that (2) a multi-band imager is useful to reduce the systematics of atmospheric origin, in particular for bluer bands and for observations conducted at low-altitude observatories.
Atmospheric characterisation of temperate, rocky planets is the holy grail of exoplanet studies. These worlds are at the limits of our capabilities with current instrumentation in transmission spectroscopy and challenge our state-of-the-art statistical techniques. Here we present the transmission spectrum of the temperate Super-Earth LHS 1140b using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) G141 grism data of this habitable zone (T$_{rm{eq}}$ = 235 K) Super-Earth (R = 1.7 $R_oplus$), shows tentative evidence of water. However, the signal-to-noise ratio, and thus the significance of the detection, is low and stellar contamination models can cause modulation over the spectral band probed. We attempt to correct for contamination using these models and find that, while many still lead to evidence for water, some could provide reasonable fits to the data without the need for molecular absorption although most of these cause also features in the visible ground-based data which are nonphysical. Future observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) would be capable of confirming, or refuting, this atmospheric detection.
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