학술논문

Discovery and spectroscopy of the young Jovian planet 51 Eri b with the Gemini Planet Imager
Document Type
Working Paper
Source
Macintosh et al., Science 350 (6256): 64-67, 2015
Subject
Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Language
Abstract
Directly detecting thermal emission from young extrasolar planets allows measurement of their atmospheric composition and luminosity, which is influenced by their formation mechanism. Using the Gemini Planet Imager, we discovered a planet orbiting the \$sim$20 Myr-old star 51 Eridani at a projected separation of 13 astronomical units. Near-infrared observations show a spectrum with strong methane and water vapor absorption. Modeling of the spectra and photometry yields a luminosity of L/LS=1.6-4.0 x 10-6 and an effective temperature of 600-750 K. For this age and luminosity, "hot-start" formation models indicate a mass twice that of Jupiter. This planet also has a sufficiently low luminosity to be consistent with the "cold- start" core accretion process that may have formed Jupiter.
Comment: 29 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, and Supplementary Materials. published in Science Express on Aug 13 2015. List of authors and the magnitudes of the star were correted