The Kepler-10 planetary system revisited by HARPS-N: A hot rocky world and a solid Neptune-mass planet

Journal Article · Thu Jul 10 00:00:00 EDT 2014 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/789/2/154· OSTI ID:22365690

Dumusque, Xavier; Buchhave, Lars A.; Latham, David W.; Charbonneau, David; Dressing, Courtney D.; Gettel, Sara; Lopez-Morales, Mercedes ^[1]; Bonomo, Aldo S. ^[2]; Haywood, Raphaëlle D.; Cameron, Andrew Collier; Horne, Keith ^[3]; Malavolta, Luca ^[4]; Ségransan, Damien; Pepe, Francesco; Udry, Stéphane ^[5]; Molinari, Emilio; Cosentino, Rosario; Fiorenzano, Aldo F. M.; Harutyunyan, Avet ^[6]; Figueira, Pedro ^[7] ; others, and

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1. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
2. INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino, via Osservatorio 20, I-10025 Pino Torinese (Italy)
3. SUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St. Andrews, North Haugh, St. Andrews Fife KY16 9SS (United Kingdom)
4. Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia "Galileo Galilei," Universita'di Padova, Vicolo dell'Osservatorio 3, I-35122 Padova (Italy)
5. Observatoire Astronomique de l'Université de Genève, 51 ch. des Maillettes, CH-1290 Versoix (Switzerland)
6. INAF - Fundacin Galileo Galilei, Rambla Jos Ana Fernandez Prez 7, E-38712 Brea Baja (Spain)
7. Centro de Astrofìsica, Universidade do Porto, Rua das Estrelas, 4150-762 Porto (Portugal)

Kepler-10b was the first rocky planet detected by the Kepler satellite and confirmed with radial velocity follow-up observations from Keck-HIRES. The mass of the planet was measured with a precision of around 30%, which was insufficient to constrain models of its internal structure and composition in detail. In addition to Kepler-10b, a second planet transiting the same star with a period of 45 days was statistically validated, but the radial velocities were only good enough to set an upper limit of 20 M{sub ⊕} for the mass of Kepler-10c. To improve the precision on the mass for planet b, the HARPS-N Collaboration decided to observe Kepler-10 intensively with the HARPS-N spectrograph on the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo on La Palma. In total, 148 high-quality radial-velocity measurements were obtained over two observing seasons. These new data allow us to improve the precision of the mass determination for Kepler-10b to 15%. With a mass of 3.33 ± 0.49 M{sub ⊕} and an updated radius of 1.47{sub −0.02}{sup +0.03} R{sub ⊕}, Kepler-10b has a density of 5.8 ± 0.8 g cm{sup –3}, very close to the value predicted by models with the same internal structure and composition as the Earth. We were also able to determine a mass for the 45-day period planet Kepler-10c, with an even better precision of 11%. With a mass of 17.2 ± 1.9 M{sub ⊕} and radius of 2.35{sub −0.04}{sup +0.09} R{sub ⊕}, Kepler-10c has a density of 7.1 ± 1.0 g cm{sup –3}. Kepler-10c appears to be the first strong evidence of a class of more massive solid planets with longer orbital periods.

• OSTI ID: 22365690
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 789, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
ACCURACY
DENSITY
GLOBAL ASPECTS
MASS
RADIAL VELOCITY
SATELLITES
STARS
STATISTICS