Kepler's First Rocky Planet: Kepler-10b
Name
Seager_Kepler's first.pdf
Size
3.96 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
fa2ac7b38bc543a8050b6c48911a1ecd
Author(s)
Seager, Sara
Date Issued
February 2011
Journal
Astrophysical Journal
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Citation
Batalha, Natalie M. et al. “Kepler's First Rocky Planet: Kepler-10b.” The Astrophysical Journal 729.1 (2011): 27. © 2011 IOP Publishing
Version
Final published version
Abstract
NASA's Kepler Mission uses transit photometry to determine the frequency of Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone of Sun-like stars. The mission reached a milestone toward meeting that goal: the discovery of its first rocky planet, Kepler-10b. Two distinct sets of transit events were detected: (1) a 152 ± 4 ppm dimming lasting 1.811 ± 0.024 hr with ephemeris T [BJD] =2454964.57375[superscript +0.00060 [subscript –0.00082]] + N*0.837495[superscript +0.000004 [subscript –0.000005]] days and (2) a 376 ± 9 ppm dimming lasting 6.86 ± 0.07 hr with ephemeris T [BJD] =2454971.6761[superscript +0.0020 [subscript –0.0023]] + N*45.29485[superscript +0.00065 [subscript –0.00076]] days. Statistical tests on the photometric and pixel flux time series established the viability of the planet candidates triggering ground-based follow-up observations. Forty precision Doppler measurements were used to confirm that the short-period transit event is due to a planetary companion. The parent star is bright enough for asteroseismic analysis. Photometry was collected at 1 minute cadence for >4 months from which we detected 19 distinct pulsation frequencies. Modeling the frequencies resulted in precise knowledge of the fundamental stellar properties. Kepler-10 is a relatively old (11.9 ± 4.5 Gyr) but otherwise Sun-like main-sequence star with T eff = 5627 ± 44 K, M sstarf = 0.895 ± 0.060 M [subscript ☉], and R sstarf = 1.056 ± 0.021 R [subscript ☉]. Physical models simultaneously fit to the transit light curves and the precision Doppler measurements yielded tight constraints on the properties of Kepler-10b that speak to its rocky composition: M P = 4.56[superscript +1.17 [subscript –1.29]] M [subscript ⊕], R P = 1.416[superscript +0.033 [subscript –0.036]] R [subscript ⊕], and [subscript ρP] = 8.8[superscript +2.1 [subscript –2.9]] g cm[superscript –3]. Kepler-10b is the smallest transiting exoplanet discovered to date.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637x/729/1/27
