Scientists from The University of New Mexico (UNM), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have detected and validated two of the longest-period exoplanets found by TESS to date. These long period large exoplanets orbit a K dwarf star and belong to a class of planets known as warm Jupiters, which have orbital periods of 10–200 days and are at least six times Earth's radius. This recent discovery offers exciting research opportunities for the future of finding long-period planets that resemble those in our own solar system.
orbiting an early K dwarf" will be published in a future issue ofThe exoplanets, TOI-4600 b and c, were detected using photometric data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and followed up with observations using the telescopes on the ground since they provide better resolution.
The University of New Mexico's Ismael Mireles, the lead author of the paper, along with collaborators including Diana Dragomir, an assistant professor in UNM's Department of Physics and Astronomy, and collaborators from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Bern, analyzed the data in order to measure the periods and sizes of these planets.
"When we got the measurements, we were seeing very little movement in the target star. So when you start, you could be responsible for what we were seeing. Those two things together pretty much ruled it out. At that point we were sure that we had two planets," Mireles stated. "Once you have two transits, you have an idea of what the periods can be. It could be the 965 days separating them, half of that, a third, a quarter, etc. The shorter periods could be ruled out because TESS had observed the star for a long time, so it only left two periods: 965 days or half of that," explained Mireles.
"The main thing is trying to uncover more about planet formation because based on what we know about the exoplanets we found, so far, nothing really looks like the solar system. The interesting thing is that we want to learn about this planet formation. We have over 5,000 exoplanets now, but none of these systems really look like the solar system. And so we want to find out how these different types of systems formed and migrated," Mireles said.
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