51 Eridani b

Last updated
51 Eri b
51 Eridani b orbit animated (2014-2018).gif
Direct imaging of 51 Eri b
Discovery
Discovered by Macintosh et al.
Discovery dateDec 2014
Imaged
Orbital characteristics
11.1+4.2
−1.3 AU
Eccentricity 0.49 (± 0.15) [1]
10260+6300
−1800 d
Inclination 136.0 (± 11.0) [1] deg
2452014.79 (± 12.0) [1] JD
84.0 (± 58.0) [1] deg
Star 51 Eridani
Physical characteristics
Mean radius
1.11+0.16
−0.13 RJ
Mass 2.6 (± 0.3) MJ
3.5 g
Temperature 700 K [2]

    51 Eridani b is a "Jupiter-like" planet that orbits the young F0 V star 51 Eridani, in the constellation Eridanus. [3] It is 96 light years away from the solar system, and it is approximately 20 million years old. [4]

    Contents

    Discovery

    51 Eridani b was announced in August 2015, but was discovered in December 2014 using the Gemini Planet Imager, an international project led by the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology. 51 Eridani b is the first exoplanet discovered by the Gemini Planet Imager. [5] The Gemini Planet Imager was specifically created to discern and evaluate dim, newer planets orbiting bright stars through “direct imaging.” [6] Direct imaging allows astronomers to use adaptive optics to sharpen the resolution of the image of a target star, then obstruct its starlight. [6] Any residual incoming light is then scrutinized, and the brightest spots suggest a possible planet. [6] Prior to the discovery of 51 Eridani b, each of the directly imaged worlds previously discovered had been gas giants many times the mass of Jupiter. [7]

    Physical characteristics

    The planet has a mass at least 2.6MJ, but not more than 11MJ. [8] Its radius is about 1.11 times the radius of Jupiter. It orbits 11.1 AU from its host star, and has an orbital period of roughly 10,000 days. [1] The average temperature is 807±45 K, which is substantially hotter than the 130 K average temperature of Jupiter, the planet in the Solar System of closest size. [9]

    Atmosphere

    51 Eridani b has relatively low C/O molar ratio of 0.38±0.09. [9] The planet has the second strongest methane signature of any exoplanet, after GJ 504 b. [10] This methane signature, along with the low luminosity of the object, should produce additional clues as to how 51 Eridani b was formed. [5] Astronomers also detected the presence of water [11] and ammonia [12] in the planet's spectrum. Atmospheric modeling favors a low surface gravity and a partly cloudy atmosphere. [7]

    Related Research Articles

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Epsilon Eridani</span> Star in the constellation Eridanus

    Epsilon Eridani, proper name Ran, is a star in the southern constellation of Eridanus. At a declination of −9.46°, it is visible from most of Earth's surface. Located at a distance 10.5 light-years from the Sun, it has an apparent magnitude of 3.73, making it the third-closest individual star visible to the naked eye.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Gliese 229</span> Star in the constellation Lepus

    Gliese 229 is a binary system composed of a red dwarf and the first brown dwarf seen by astronomers, 18.8 light years away in the constellation Lepus. The primary component has 58% of the mass of the Sun, 69% of the Sun's radius, and a very low projected rotation velocity of 1 km/s at the stellar equator.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">HD 10647</span> Star in the constellation Eridanus

    HD 10647 is a 6th-magnitude yellow-white dwarf star, 57 light-years away in the constellation of Eridanus. The star is visible to the unaided eye under very dark skies. It is slightly hotter and more luminous than the Sun, and at 1.75 billion years old, it is also younger. An extrasolar planet was discovered orbiting this star in 2003.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Methods of detecting exoplanets</span>

    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.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Epsilon Eridani b</span> Gas giant orbiting Epsilon Eridani

    Epsilon Eridani b, also known as AEgir [sic], is an exoplanet approximately 10.5 light-years away orbiting the star Epsilon Eridani, in the constellation of Eridanus. The planet was discovered in 2000, and as of 2023 remains the only confirmed planet in its planetary system. It orbits at around 3.5 AU with a period of around 7.6 years, and has a mass around 0.6 times that of Jupiter. As of 2023, both the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia and the NASA Exoplanet Archive list the planet as 'confirmed'.

    Gliese 86 is a K-type main-sequence star approximately 35 light-years away in the constellation of Eridanus. It has been confirmed that a white dwarf orbits the primary star. In 1998 the European Southern Observatory announced that an extrasolar planet was orbiting the star.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">HR 8799 b</span> Jovian planet orbiting HR 8799

    HR 8799 b is an extrasolar planet located approximately 129 light-years away in the constellation of Pegasus, orbiting the 6th magnitude Lambda Boötis star HR 8799. It has a mass between 4 and 7 Jupiter masses and a radius from 10 to 30% larger than Jupiter's. It orbits at 68 AU from HR 8799 with an unknown eccentricity and a period of 460 years, and is the outermost known planet in the HR 8799 system. Along with two other planets orbiting HR 8799, the planet was discovered on November 13, 2008 by Marois et al., using the Keck and Gemini observatories in Hawaii. These planets were discovered using the direct imaging technique.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">HR 8799 c</span> Exoplanet orbiting HR 8799

    HR 8799 c is an extrasolar planet located approximately 129 light-years away in the constellation of Pegasus, orbiting the 6th magnitude Lambda Boötis star HR 8799. This planet has a mass between 5 and 10 Jupiter masses and a radius from 20 to 30% larger than Jupiter's. It orbits at 38 AU from HR 8799 with an unknown eccentricity and a period of 190 years; it is the 2nd planet discovered in the HR 8799 system. Along with two other planets orbiting HR 8799, this planet was discovered on November 13, 2008, by Marois et al., using the Keck and the Gemini observatories in Hawaii. These planets were discovered using the direct imaging technique. In January 2010, HR 8799 c became the 3rd exoplanet to have a portion of its spectrum directly observed, confirming the feasibility of direct spectrographic studies of exoplanets.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Beta Pictoris b</span> Super Jupiter orbiting Beta Pictoris

    Beta Pictoris b (abbreviated as β Pic b) is an exoplanet orbiting the young debris disk A-type main sequence star Beta Pictoris located approximately 63 light-years (19.4 parsecs, or 6×1014 km) away from Earth in the constellation of Pictor. It has a mass around 13 Jupiter masses and a radius around 46% larger than Jupiter's. It orbits at 9 AU from Beta Pictoris, which is about 3.5 times farther than the orbit of Beta Pictoris c. It orbits close to the plane of the debris disk orbiting the star, with a low eccentricity and a period of 20–21 years.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">51 Pegasi b</span> Hot Jupiter exoplanet orbiting 51 Pgeasi

    51 Pegasi b, officially named Dimidium, is an extrasolar planet approximately 50 light-years away in the constellation of Pegasus. It was the first exoplanet to be discovered orbiting a main-sequence star, the Sun-like 51 Pegasi, and marked a breakthrough in astronomical research. It is the prototype for a class of planets called hot Jupiters.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Discoveries of exoplanets</span> Detecting planets located outside the Solar System

    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 December 2023, there are 5,550 confirmed exoplanets in 4,089 planetary systems, with 887 systems having more than one planet. This is a list of the most notable discoveries.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">HD 95086 b</span> Exoplanet orbiting the young HD 95086

    HD 95086 b, formally named Levantes, is a confirmed, directly imaged exoplanet orbiting the young, 17 Myr A-class pre-main-sequence star HD 95086. It is roughly 5 times as massive as Jupiter and orbits about 70 AU away from the parent star. It was detected at thermal infrared wavelengths (3.8 μm) through direct imaging, using the NACO instrument on the VLT. A debris disk has been detected in this system at submillimeter wavelengths and has been resolved in the far-infrared from data obtained with the Herschel Space Observatory.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Gliese 504 b</span> Planetary mass object orbiting Gliese 504

    Gliese 504 b is a Jovian planet or brown dwarf located in the system of the solar analog 59 Virginis, discovered by direct imaging using HiCIAO instrument and AO188 adaptive optics system on the 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope of Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii by Kuzuhara et al. Visually, GJ 504 b would have a dull magenta color. It can be seen from Earth in the constellation Virgo.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">51 Eridani</span> F-type main sequence star in the constellation Eridanus

    51 Eridani is a star in the constellation Eridanus. It has an apparent magnitude of 5.22, meaning it is just visible to the unaided eye in suburban and rural skies. The primary star's absolute magnitude is 2.87. There is also a binary star named GJ 3305 which shares the same proper motion through space with it, making it overall a triple star system.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">HD 131399</span> Star in the constellation Centaurus

    HD 131399 is a star system in the constellation of Centaurus. Based on the system's electromagnetic spectrum, it is located around 350 light-years away. The total apparent magnitude is 7.07, but because of interstellar dust between it and the Earth, it appears 0.22 ± 0.09 magnitudes dimmer than it should be.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">COCONUTS-2b</span> Gas giant exoplanet orbiting L 34-26

    COCONUTS-2 b, or WISEPA J075108.79-763449.6, is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits the M-type star L 34-26. With a mass of 6.3 Jupiters, it takes over one million years to complete one orbit around the star, and it is 7,506 AU away from it.

    References

    1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Planet 51 Eri b". Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia . Retrieved 25 December 2020.
    2. ↑ Discovery and spectroscopy of the young Jovian planet 51 Eri b with the Gemini Planet Imager, B. Macintosh, and the GPIES team, Science Published Online August 13, 2015 doi:10.1126/science.aac5891.
    3. ↑ Choi, Charles (August 13, 2015). "Found! 'Young Jupiter,' the Smallest Exoplanet Directly Seen by Telescope". Space.com . Retrieved August 15, 2015.
    4. ↑ Hadhazy, Adam (August 13, 2015). "'Young Jupiter' 51 Eridani b: Why Directly Imaging an Exoplanet Is Big". space.com. Retrieved August 15, 2015.
    5. 1 2 University, Stanford (13 August 2015). "Astronomers discover 'young Jupiter' exoplanet".
    6. 1 2 3 Culler, Jessica (14 August 2015). "NASA Scientists Help Understand Newly Discovered Planet".
    7. 1 2 Billings, Lee. "Astronomers Glimpse a Young Jupiter, 51 Eridani b". Scientific American .
    8. ↑ Dupuy, Trent J.; Brandt, G Mirek; Brandt, Timothy D. (2022), "Limits on the mass and initial entropy of 51 Eri b from Gaia EDR3 astrometry", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 509 (3): 4411–4419, arXiv: 2110.13173 , doi:10.1093/mnras/stab3148
    9. 1 2 Brown-Sevilla, S. B.; Maire, A. -L.; Mollière, P.; Samland, M.; Feldt, M.; Brandner, W.; Henning, Th.; Gratton, R.; Janson, M.; Stolker, T.; Hagelberg, J.; Zurlo, A.; Cantalloube, F.; Boccaletti, A.; Bonnefoy, M.; Chauvin, G.; Desidera, S.; D'Orazi, V.; Lagrange, A. -M.; Langlois, M.; Menard, F.; Mesa, D.; Meyer, M.; Pavlov, A.; Petit, C.; Rochat, S.; Rouan, D.; Schmidt, T.; Vigan, A.; Weber, L. (2023), "Revisiting the atmosphere of the exoplanet 51 Eridani b with VLT/SPHERE", Astronomy & Astrophysics, 673: A98, arXiv: 2211.14330 , Bibcode:2023A&A...673A..98B, doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202244826, S2CID   254043688
    10. ↑ "Astronomers Discover Young Planet That Looks Like Jupiter 100 Light Years Away". Independent.co.uk . 13 August 2015.[ dead link ]
    11. ↑ "Young 'alien Jupiter' discovered". BBC News. 14 August 2015.
    12. ↑ Whiteford, Niall; Glasse, Alistair; Chubb, Katy L.; Kitzmann, Daniel; Ray, Shrishmoy; Phillips, Mark W.; Biller, Beth A.; Palmer, Paul I.; Rice, Ken; Waldmann, Ingo P.; Changeat, Quentin; Skaf, Nour; Wang, Jason; Edwards, Billy; Al-Refaie, Ahmed (2023), "Retrieval study of cool directly imaged exoplanet 51 Eri B", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 525: 1375–1400, arXiv: 2302.07939 , doi:10.1093/mnras/stad670
    This page is based on this Wikipedia article
    Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
    Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.