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The High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) is a high-precision echelle planet-finding spectrograph installed in 2002 on the ESO's 3.6m telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile. The first light was achieved in February 2003. HARPS has discovered over 130 exoplanets to date, with the first one in 2004, making it the most successful planet finder behind the Kepler space observatory. It is a second-generation radial-velocity spectrograph, based on experience with the ELODIE and CORALIE instruments.
Any planet is an extremely faint light source compared to its parent star. For example, a star like the Sun is about a billion times as bright as the reflected light from any of the planets orbiting it. In addition to the intrinsic difficulty of detecting such a faint light source, the light from the parent star causes a glare that washes it out. For those reasons, very few of the exoplanets reported as of April 2014 have been observed directly, with even fewer being resolved from their host star.
A super-Earth is an exoplanet with a mass higher than Earth's, but substantially below those of the Solar System's ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, which are 14.5 and 17 times Earth's, respectively. The term "super-Earth" refers only to the mass of the planet, and so does not imply anything about the surface conditions or habitability. The alternative term "gas dwarfs" may be more accurate for those at the higher end of the mass scale, although "mini-Neptunes" is a more common term.
WASP-4b is an extrasolar planet approximately 891 light-years away in the constellation of Phoenix.
An astro-comb is a type of frequency comb used in observational astronomy to increase the resolution of spectrographs. The resulting increase in spectral resolution allows for the detection of small variations in stellar radial velocities caused by smaller orbiting exoplanets, among other applications. Astro-combs are distinguished from conventional frequency combs by their focus on high repetition frequencies.
Kepler-7b is one of the first five exoplanets to be confirmed by NASA's Kepler spacecraft, and was confirmed in the first 33.5 days of Kepler's science operations. It orbits a star slightly hotter and significantly larger than the Sun that is expected to soon reach the end of the main sequence. Kepler-7b is a hot Jupiter that is about half the mass of Jupiter, but is nearly 1.5 times its size; at the time of its discovery, Kepler-7b was the second most diffuse planet known, surpassed only by WASP-17b. It orbits its host star every five days at a distance of approximately 0,06 AU. Kepler-7b was announced at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society on January 4, 2010. It is the first extrasolar planet to have a crude map of cloud coverage.
Kepler-8b is the fifth of the first five exoplanets discovered by NASA's Kepler spacecraft, which aims to discover planets in a region of the sky between the constellations Lyra and Cygnus that transit their host stars. The planet is the hottest of the five. Kepler-8b was the only planet discovered in Kepler-8's orbit, and is larger than Jupiter. It orbits its host star every 3.5 days. The planet also demonstrates the Rossiter–McLaughlin effect, where the planet's orbit affects the redshifting of the spectrum of the host star. Kepler-8b was announced to the public on January 4, 2010 at a conference in Washington, D.C. after radial velocity measurements conducted at the W.M. Keck Observatory confirmed its detection by Kepler.
An exoplanet is a planet located outside the Solar System. The first evidence of an exoplanet was noted as early as 1917, but was not recognized as such until 2016; no planet discovery has yet come from that evidence. What turned out to be the first detection of an exoplanet was published among a list of possible candidates in 1988, though not confirmed until 2003. The first confirmed detection came in 1992, with the discovery of terrestrial-mass planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12. The first confirmation of an exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star was made in 1995, when a giant planet was found in a four-day orbit around the nearby star 51 Pegasi. Some exoplanets have been imaged directly by telescopes, but the vast majority have been detected through indirect methods, such as the transit method and the radial-velocity method. As of 1 April 2023, there are 5,346 confirmed exoplanets in 3,943 planetary systems, with 855 systems having more than one planet. This is a list of the most notable discoveries.
Kepler-10b is the first confirmed terrestrial planet to have been discovered outside the Solar System by the Kepler Space Telescope. Discovered after several months of data collection during the course of the NASA-directed Kepler Mission, which aims to discover Earth-like planets crossing in front of their host stars, the planet's discovery was announced on January 10, 2011. Kepler-10b has a mass of 3.72±0.42 Earth masses and a radius of 1.47 Earth radii. However, it lies extremely close to its star, Kepler-10, and as a result is too hot to support life as we know it. Its existence was confirmed using measurements from the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii.
Kepler-10, formerly known as KOI-72, is a Sun-like star in the constellation of Draco that lies 173 parsecs (560 ly) from Earth. Kepler-10 was targeted by NASA's Kepler spacecraft, as it was seen as the first star identified by the Kepler mission that could be a possible host to a small, transiting exoplanet. The star is slightly less massive, slightly larger, and slightly cooler than the Sun; at an estimated 11.9 billion years in age, Kepler-10 is almost 2.6 times the age of the Sun. Kepler-10 is host to a planetary system made up of at least two planets. Kepler-10b, the first undeniably rocky planet, was discovered in its orbit after eight months of observation and announced on January 10, 2011. The planet orbits its star closely, completing an orbit every 0.8 days, and has a density similar to that of iron. The second planet, Kepler-10c, was confirmed on May 23, 2011, based on follow-up observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope. The data shows it has an orbital period of 42.3 days and has a radius more than double that of Earth, but a higher density, making it the largest and most massive rocky planet discovered as of June 2014.
HAT-P-17 is a K-type main-sequence star about 92.6 parsecs (302 ly) away. It has a mass of about 0.857 ± 0.039 M☉. It is the host of two planets, HAT-P-17b and HAT-P-17c, both discovered in 2010. A search for a binary companion star using adaptive optics at the MMT Observatory was negative. A candidate companion was detected by a spectroscopic search of high-resolution K band infrared spectra taken at the Keck observatory.
Kepler-22 is a sun-like star in the northern constellation of Cygnus, the swan, that is orbited by a planet found to be unequivocally within the star's habitable zone. It is located at the celestial coordinates: Right Ascension 19h 16m 52.2s, Declination +47° 53′ 4.2″. With an apparent visual magnitude of 11.7, this star is too faint to be seen with the naked eye. It can be viewed with a telescope having an aperture of at least 4 in (10 cm). The estimated distance to Kepler-22 is 638 light-years.
Kepler-29 is a Sun-like star in the northern constellation of Cygnus. It is located at the celestial coordinates: Right Ascension 19h 53m 23.6020s, Declination +47° 29′ 28.436″. With an apparent visual magnitude of 15.456, this star is too faint to be seen with the naked eye. It is a solar analog, having a close mass, radius, and temperature as the Sun. Currently the age of the star has not been determined due to its 2780 light-year distance. As of 2016 no Jovian exoplanets of 0.9–1.4 MJ have been found at a distance of 5 AU.
Kepler-44, formerly known as KOI-204, is a star in the northern constellation of Cygnus. It is located at the celestial coordinates: Right Ascension 20h 00m 24.564s, Declination +45° 45′ 43.71″. With an apparent visual magnitude of 16, this star is too faint to be seen with the naked eye.
The Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) is a ground-based robotic search for exoplanets. The facility is located at Paranal Observatory in the Atacama desert in northern Chile, about 2 km from ESO's Very Large Telescope and 0.5 km from the VISTA Survey Telescope. Science operations began in early 2015. The astronomical survey is managed by a consortium of seven European universities and other academic institutions from Chile, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Prototypes of the array were tested in 2009 and 2010 on La Palma, and from 2012 to 2014 at Geneva Observatory.
The MINiature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array (MINERVA) is a ground-based robotic dedicated exoplanet observatory. The facility is an array of small-aperture robotic telescopes outfitted for both photometry and high-resolution Doppler spectroscopy located at the U.S. Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory at Mt. Hopkins, Arizona. The project's principal investigator is the American astronomer Jason Eastman. The telescopes were manufactured by PlaneWave Instruments.
Pr0211 c, sometimes written as Pr 0211 c, is a gas giant exoplanet orbiting around the Sun-like star Pr0211, a G-type main sequence star. Pr0211 c and two other planets, Pr0211 b and Pr0201 b are notable for being one of the first exoplanets discovered in the Beehive cluster located in the constellation Cancer, and for being the first multi-planet system discovered in an open cluster. Its host star, Pr0211, is rotationally variable and has a rotation period of 7.97 days.
Kepler-1625 is a 14th-magnitude solar-mass star located in the constellation of Cygnus approximately 8,000 light years away. Its mass is within 5% of that of the Sun, but its radius is approximately 70% larger reflecting its more evolved state. A candidate gas giant exoplanet was detected by the Kepler Mission around the star in 2015, which was later validated as a likely real planet to >99% confidence in 2016. In 2018, the Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler project reported that this exoplanet has evidence for a Neptune-sized exomoon around it, based on observations from NASA’s Kepler Mission. Subsequent observations by the larger Hubble Space Telescope provided compounding evidence for a Neptune-sized satellite, with an on-going debate about the reality of this exomoon candidate.
GJ 9827 is a star in the constellation of Pisces. It is a K-type main-sequence star with an apparent magnitude of 10.250. It is 97 light-years away, based on parallax.
KELT-6, also known as BD+31 2447, is a star in the constellation Coma Berenices. With an apparent magnitude of 10.34, it is impossible to see with the unaided eye, but can be seen with a powerful telescope. The star is located 791 light years away from the Solar System based on parallax, but is drifting away with a radial velocity of 1.62 km/s.
References
- ↑ Cosentino, Rosario; Lovis, Christophe; Pepe, Francesco; Collier Cameron, Andrew; Latham, David W.; Molinari, Emilio; Udry, Stephane; Bezawada, Naidu; Black, Martin; Born, Andy; Buchschacher, Nicolas; Charbonneau, Dave; Figueira, Pedro; Fleury, Michel; Galli, Alberto; Gallie, Angus; Gao, Xiaofeng; Ghedina, Adriano; Gonzalez, Carlos; Gonzalez, Manuel; Guerra, Jose; Henry, David; Horne, Keith; Hughes, Ian; Kelly, Dennis; Lodi, Marcello; Lunney, David; Maire, Charles; Mayor, Michel; et al. (2012). "Harps-N: the new planet hunter at TNG". In McLean, Ian S; Ramsay, Suzanne K; Takami, Hideki (eds.). Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy IV. Vol. 8446. pp. 84461V. Bibcode:2012SPIE.8446E..1VC. doi:10.1117/12.925738. S2CID 125379344. Cosentino et al. 2012, Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 8446, article id. 84461V
- ↑ Latham, David W.; HARPS-N Collaboration (2013). "HARPS-N: A New Tool for Characterizing Kepler Planets". American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #221. 221: 231.02. Bibcode:2013AAS...22123102L. Latham et al. 2013, American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #221, #231.02
- ↑ https://plone2.unige.ch/HARPS-N/news/official-operations-starting-on-august-1st-2012 Official operations starting on August 1st, 2012
