Detection of transits of the nearby hot Neptune GJ 436 b

By M. Gillon, F. Pont, B. Demory, F. Mallmann, M. Mayor, T. Mazeh, D. Queloz, Avi Shporer, S. Udry, C. Geneve and 16 more. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2007

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This Letter reports on the photometric detection of transits of the Neptune-mass planet orbiting the nearby M-dwarf star GJ 436. It is by far the closest, smallest, and least massive transiting planet detected so far. Its mass is slightly larger than Neptune’s at M = 22.6 ± 1.9 M⊕. The shape and depth of the transit lightcurves show that it is crossing the host star disc near its limb (impact parameter 0.84 ± 0.03) and that the planet size is comparable to that of Uranus and Neptune, R = 25 200 ± 2200 km = 3.95 ± 0.35 R⊕. Its main constituant is therefore very likely to be water ice. If the current planet structure models are correct, an outer layer of H/He constituting up to ten percent in mass is probably needed on top of the ice to account for the observed radius.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

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Citations in the corpus

The HARPS search for southern extra-solar planets - XXXI. The M-dwarf sample (2011, background): “One is GJ 436 b, a Neptune-mass planet initially detected with Doppler measurements (Butler et al. 2006; Maness et al. 2007) and subsequently seen in transit (Gillon et al. 2007b).”
Two Classes of Hot Jupiters (2007, background): “The isolated point at the lower left is the Neptune-mass companion to GJ 436b, whose measured radius is much below (Gillon et al. 2007) that of a H/He mixture and may legitimately be considered a different kind of object from the others.”
The Interior Structure, Composition, and Evolution of Giant Planets (2009, background): “4.2 The Expanding Field of Exo-Neptunes The transits of planets GJ 436b (Gillon et al. 2007) and HAT-P-11b (Bakos et al. 2009) have opened the field of direct characterization of Neptune-class planets in addition to Jupiter- and Saturn-class.”
Homogeneous studies of transiting extrasolar planets – I. Light-curve analyses (2008, methodology): “The method has been used before on several TEPs (e.g. Bouchy et al. 2005a; Pont et al. 2005; Gillon et al. 2007a; Knutson et al. 2007a).”
Design Considerations for a Ground-Based Transit Search for Habitable Planets Orbiting M Dwarfs (2007, background): “Until the recent discovery that the Neptune-sized GJ 436b transits its host M dwarf (Gillon et al. 2007), all known transiting planets were hot gas giants orbiting Sun-like stars.”
A FRAMEWORK FOR QUANTIFYING THE DEGENERACIES OF EXOPLANET INTERIOR COMPOSITIONS (2009, methodology): “…436b and its host star given by Torres (2007) and Torres et al. (2008), who employed a weighted average of light-curve parameters from ground-based (Gillon et al. 2007b) and Spitzer studies (Deming et al. 2007; Gillon et al. 2007a): L∗ = 0.0260 +0.0014 −0.0017 L⊙, Mp = 23.17 ± 0.79M⊕, Rp =…”
The Transit Light Source Effect: False Spectral Features and Incorrect Densities for M-dwarf Transiting Planets (2017, methodology): “For the hot Neptune case, we adopt the parameters of GJ 436b (Butler et al. 2004; Gillon et al. 2007), which is one of the largest and hottest planets known to transit an M dwarf and represents a more readily observable exoplanet atmosphere.”
The Habitability of Planets Orbiting M-dwarf Stars (2016, background): “There existed only one planet known to transit an M dwarf before MEarth: GJ 436b was first detected with radial velocity measurements (Butler et al., 2004; Maness et al., 2007) and only discovered to transit afterward (Gillon et al., 2007).”
Ocean Planet or Thick Atmosphere: On the Mass-Radius Relationship for Solid Exoplanets with Massive Atmospheres (2007, background): “We now turn to a qualitative study of GJ436b, to show that the interpretation that GJ436b is a water world akin to Uranus and Neptune (Gillon et al. 2007a) is not the only possibility.”
A FRAMEWORK FOR CHARACTERIZING THE ATMOSPHERES OF LOW-MASS LOW-DENSITY TRANSITING PLANETS (2013, unknown): “Two benchmark smaller planets are the 22.4 M⊕ “warm Neptune” GJ 436b (Butler et al. 2004; Gillon et al. 2007) and the “super-Earth mass” 6.5 M⊕ GJ 1214b (Charbonneau et al. 2009).”
LYα TRANSIT SPECTROSCOPY AND THE NEUTRAL HYDROGEN TAIL OF THE HOT NEPTUNE GJ 436b (2014, methodology): “GJ436b was discovered by Butler et al. (2004) using the radial velocity method, but was later found to be transiting its host star (Gillon et al. 2007).”
OBLIQUITIES OF HOT JUPITER HOST STARS: EVIDENCE FOR TIDAL INTERACTIONS AND PRIMORDIAL MISALIGNMENTS (2012, background): “Gl 436 The transiting planet in Gl 436 was discovered by Butler et al. (2004) and found to be transiting by Gillon et al. (2007).”
A New Planet around an M Dwarf: Revealing a Correlation between Exoplanets and Stellar Mass (2007, background): “The kinship between these extrasolar “super Earths” and the ice giants in our Solar System was confirmed with the recent discovery that the Neptune–mass planet around GJ 436 transits its central star (Gillon et al. 2007).”
CHARACTERIZING THE COOL KOIs. II. THE M DWARF KOI-254 AND ITS HOT JUPITER (2011, background): “…of the mass scale, transits of the RV-detected, shortperiod Neptune Gl 436 b were detected by ground-based follow-up photometry (Butler et al. 2004; Gillon et al. 2007), and the MEarth survey discovered a transiting super earth orbiting the nearby, low-mass star GJ 1214 (Charbonneau et al. 2009).”
Observational Evidence for Tidal Interaction in Close Binary Systems (2007, background): “Consider, for example, the M-type star Gliese 436, whose planet was discovered by Butler et al. (2004), and its transiting nature was revealed only recently by Gillon et al. (2007).”
Detection of a transit of the super-Earth 55 Cancri e with warm Spitzer (2011, background): “The first transit of one of these low-mass planets, GJ 436b, was detected in 2007 (Gillon et al. 2007).”
PLANET OCCURRENCE WITHIN 0.25 AU OF SOLAR-TYPE STARS FROM KEPLER (2011, unknown): “…Figure 9 all have masses greater than Neptune’s (17 M⊕) and densities less than 2 g cm−3: Kepler-4b (Borucki et al. 2010), Gl 436b (Maness et al. 2007; Gillon et al. 2007; Torres et al. 2008), HAT-P-11b (Bakos et al. 2010), HAT-P-26b (Hartman et al. 2011), Corot-8b (Bordé et al. 2010), and HD…”
Spitzer Transit and Secondary Eclipse Photometry of GJ 436b (2007, methodology): “We conclude that No. 2, 2007 TRANSIT AND ECLIPSE OF GJ 436b L201 TABLE 1 Derived Parameters for GJ 436 Parameter Value Stellar radiusa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.47 0.02 Stellar mass. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.47 0.02 Planet radius. . . . . . . . . . . . ”