ScienceDaily (July 9, 2010) — A team of astronomers from Germany, Bulgaria and Poland have used a completely new technique to find an exotic extrasolar planet. The same approach is sensitive enough to find planets as small as the Earth in orbit around other stars. The group, led by Dr Gracjan Maciejewski of Jena University in Germany, used Transit Timing Variation to detect a planet with 15 times the mass of the Earth in the system WASP-3, 700 light years from the Sun in the constellation of Lyra.
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This image shows the faint star WASP-3 (magnitude 10.5 or about 60 times fainter than can be seen with the unaided eye) in the centre of the image, made using the 90-cm telescope of the University Observatory Jena. The star is enlarged with better sensitivity and resolution in the inlay in the lower left. WASP-3 is at a distance of 700 light years and is located in the constellation Lyra. North is up, east to the left. The large image is a composite of three images taken using different filters (blue, visual and red) and the small inlay only uses a red filter. (Credit: Gracan Maciejewski, Dinko Dimitrov, Ralph Neuhäuser, Andrzej Niedzielski et al.)
Transit Timing Variation (TTV) was suggested as a new technique for discovering planets a few years ago. Transits take place where a planet moves in front of the star it orbits, temporarily blocking some of the light from the star. So far this method has been used to detect a number of planets and is being deployed by the Kepler and Corot space missions in its search for planets similar to the Earth.
If a (typically large) planet is found, then the gravity of additional smaller planets will tug on the larger object, causing deviations in the regular cycle of transits. The TTV technique compares the deviations with predictions made by extensive computer-based calculations, allowing astronomers to deduce the makeup of the planetary system.
For this search, the team used the 90-cm telescopes of the University Observatory Jena and the 60-cm telescope of the Rohzen National Astronomical Observatory in Bulgaria to study transits of WASP-3b, a large planet with 630 times the mass of the Earth.
"We detected periodic variations in the transit timing of WASP-3b. These variations can be explained by an additional planet in the system, with a mass of 15 Earth-mass (i.e. one Uranus mass) and a period of 3.75 days," said Dr Maciejewski.
"In line with international rules, we called this new planet WASP-3c." This newly discovered planet is among the least massive planets known to date and also the least massive planet known orbiting a star which is more massive than our Sun.
This is the first time that a new extra-solar planet has been discovered using this method. The new TTV approach is an indirect detection technique, like the previously successful transit method.
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G.Maciejewski, D.Dimitrov, R.Neuhaeuser, A.Niedzielski, St.Raetz, Ch.Ginski, Ch.Adam, C.Marka, M.Moualla, M.Mugrauer
(Submitted on 7 Jun 2010)
Photometric follow-ups of transiting exoplanets may lead to discoveries of additional, less massive bodies in extrasolar systems. This is possible by detecting and then analysing variations in transit timing of transiting exoplanets. We present photometric observations gathered in 2009 and 2010 for exoplanet WASP-3b during the dedicated transit-timing-variation campaign. The observed transit timing cannot be explained by a constant period but by a periodic variation in the observations minus calculations diagram. Simplified models assuming the existence of a perturbing planet in the system and reproducing the observed variations of timing residuals were identified by three-body simulations. We found that the configuration with the hypothetical second planet of the mass of about 15 Earth masses, located close to the outer 2:1 mean motion resonance is the most likely scenario reproducing observed transit timing. We emphasize, however, that more observations are required to constrain better the parameters of the hypothetical second planet in WASP-3 system. For final interpretation not only transit timing but also photometric observations of the transit of the predicted second planet and the high precision radial-velocity data are needed.
Comments: MNRAS accepted
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:1006.1348v1 [astro-ph.EP]
Submission history From: Gracjan Maciejewski [view email]
[v1] Mon, 7 Jun 2010 19:56:08 GMT (115kb)
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