A super-Earth transiting a nearby low-mass star

By D. Charbonneau, Z. K. Berta, J. Irwin, C. Burke, P. Nutzman, Lars A. Buchhave, C. Lovis, X. Bonfils, D. Latham, S. Udry and 9 more. 2009

684 citations recorded by the source corpus.

A decade ago, the detection of the first transiting extrasolar planet provided a direct constraint on its composition and opened the door to spectroscopic investigations of extrasolar planetary atmospheres. Because such characterization studies are feasible only for transiting systems that are both nearby and for which the planet-to-star radius ratio is relatively large, nearby small stars have been surveyed intensively. Doppler studies and microlensing have uncovered a population of planets with minimum masses of 1.9–10 times the Earth’s mass (M⊕), called super-Earths. The first constraint on the bulk composition of this novel class of planets was afforded by CoRoT-7b (refs 8, 9), but the distance and size of its star preclude atmospheric studies in the foreseeable future. Here we report observations of the transiting planet GJ 1214b, which has a mass of 6.55M⊕ and a radius 2.68 times Earth’s radius (R⊕), indicating that it is intermediate in stature between Earth and the ice giants of the Solar System. We find that the planetary mass and radius are consistent with a composition of primarily water enshrouded by a hydrogen–helium envelope that is only 0.05% of the mass of the planet. The atmosphere is probably escaping hydrodynamically, indicating that it has undergone significant evolution during its history. The star is small and only 13 parsecs away, so the planetary atmosphere is amenable to study with current observatories.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Jon Fortney
2. D. Charbonneau
3. N. Madhusudhan
4. Timothy Morton
5. J. Johnson
6. Sara Seager
7. J. Winn
8. G. Marcy

In Instrumentation

1. Jon Fortney
2. D. Charbonneau
3. Timothy Morton
4. N. Madhusudhan
5. J. Johnson
6. Sara Seager
7. J. Winn
8. J. Southworth

Citations in the corpus

• STELLAR AND PLANETARY PROPERTIES OF K2 CAMPAIGN 1 CANDIDATES AND VALIDATION OF 17 PLANETS, INCLUDING A PLANET RECEIVING EARTH-LIKE INSOLATION (2015, background): “This star is only 0.1 mag fainter in K than GJ 1214 (Charbonneau et al. 2009).”
• TRANSIT DETECTION IN THE MEarth SURVEY OF NEARBY M DWARFS: BRIDGING THE CLEAN-FIRST, SEARCH-LATER DIVIDE (2012, background): “Given our single planet detection of GJ1214b, we will use this survey sensitivity estimate to place limits on the occurrence rate of short-period planets around nearby mid-to-late M dwarfs.”
• PLANETS AROUND LOW-MASS STARS (PALMS). IV. THE OUTER ARCHITECTURE OF M DWARF PLANETARY SYSTEMS (2014, background): “…recent radial velocity and transit surveys are showing that Earth- to Neptune-sized planets not only exist in this stellar mass regime (e.g., Udry et al. 2007; Mayor et al. 2009; Charbonneau et al. 2009; Muirhead et al. 2012) but appear to be quite common (Bonfils et al. 2013; Berta et al. 2013).”
• Detection of a transit of the super-Earth 55 Cancri e with warm Spitzer (2011, background): “The super-Earth GJ 1214b (Charbonneau et al. 2009) is still mysterious in nature.”
• The HARPS search for southern extra-solar planets - XXXI. The M-dwarf sample (2011, neutral): “5 dwarf GJ 1214 (Charbonneau et al. 2009).”
• HOW THERMAL EVOLUTION AND MASS-LOSS SCULPT POPULATIONS OF SUPER-EARTHS AND SUB-NEPTUNES: APPLICATION TO THE KEPLER-11 SYSTEM AND BEYOND (2012, background): “…(Fressin et al. 2012; Gautier et al. 2012), Kepler-18b (Cochran et al. 2011), 55 Cancri e (Winn et al. 2011; Demory et al. 2011), GJ 1214b (Charbonneau et al. 2009), Kepler-36c (Carter et al. 2012), Kepler-30b (Fabrycky et al. 2012; Sanchis-Ojeda et al. 2012), and GJ 3470b (Bonfils et…”
• THE MUSCLES TREASURY SURVEY. I. MOTIVATION AND OVERVIEW (2016, background): “It is estimated to have an age of 5.6 ± 0.1 Gyr and a subsolar metallicity, [Fe/H] = −0.26 (Tsantaki et al. 2013), based on its 47 day rotation period.”
• QUANTITATIVELY ASSESSING THE ROLE OF CLOUDS IN THE TRANSMISSION SPECTRUM OF GJ 1214b (2013, background): “INTRODUCTION The transiting super-Earth GJ 1214b is the first planet discovered by the MEarth survey (Charbonneau et al. 2009) and is currently the only super-Earth that has been observed using transmission spectroscopy.”
• HOW ROCKY ARE THEY? THE COMPOSITION DISTRIBUTION OF KEPLER’S SUB-NEPTUNE PLANET CANDIDATES WITHIN 0.15 AU (2014, background): “…sub-Neptunes, such as GJ 876d (Valencia et al. 2007), CoRoT-7b (e.g. Léger et al. 2009; Valencia et al. 2010; Jackson et al. 2010), GJ1214b (e.g. Charbonneau et al. 2009; Rogers & Seager 2010; Nettelmann et al. 2011; Valencia et al. 2013), and the Kepler-11 system (Lopez et al. 2012), to…”
• Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) (2014, methodology): “Furthermore, planets transiting the very latest-type stars can be detected with ground-based instruments, as demonstrated by the MEarth survey.(10)”
• METALLICITY AND TEMPERATURE INDICATORS IN M DWARF K-BAND SPECTRA: TESTING NEW AND UPDATED CALIBRATIONS WITH OBSERVATIONS OF 133 SOLAR NEIGHBORHOOD M DWARFS (2011, neutral): “…et al. 1998a), Gl 436 (Butler et al. 2004), Gl 581 (Bonfils et al. 2005b), Gl 849 (Butler et al. 2006), Gl 176 (Forveille et al. 2009), GJ 1214 (Charbonneau et al. 2009), Gl 649 (Johnson et al. 2010), HIP 57050 (aka GJ 1148, Haghighipour et al. 2010), HIP 79431 (Apps et al. 2010), Gl 179…”
• The CARMENES search for exoplanets around M dwarfs (2018, neutral): “Only eighteen planetary systems – GJ 54.1 (Astudillo-Defru et al. 2017a), GJ 1132 (Berta-Thompson et al. 2015), GJ 1214 (Charbonneau et al. 2009), GJ 176 (Forveille et al. 2009), GJ 273 (AstudilloDefru et al. 2017b), GJ 3138 (Astudillo-Defru et al. 2017b), GJ 3323 (Astudillo-Defru et al. 2017b), GJ…”
• The Habitability of Planets Orbiting M-dwarf Stars (2016, background): “The discovery of GJ 1214b was the first of its kind, a transiting Super-Earth detected from the ground, and a super-Earth transiting an M dwarf (Charbonneau et al., 2009).”
• TESTING IN SITU ASSEMBLY WITH THE KEPLER PLANET CANDIDATE SAMPLE (2013, background): “…to probe below 10 M⊕ (Wolszczan & Frail 1992; McArthur et al. 2004; Santos et al. 2004; Rivera et al. 2005; Beaulieu et al. 2006; Lovis et al. 2006; Charbonneau et al. 2009; Queloz et al. 2009; Mayor et al. 2009; Batalha et al. 2011), potentially delving into the regime of true terrestrial planet…”
• THE RADIUS DISTRIBUTION OF PLANETS AROUND COOL STARS (2013, background): “Even Gliese 1214b (Charbonneau et al. 2009), by far the beststudied planet around an M dwarf to date, appears to be an exception to the typical system, as its radius of 2.7 R⊕ lies far down the tail of this distribution.”