A Giant Planet Imaged in the Disk of the Young Star β Pictoris
02 Jul 2010-Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science)-Vol. 329, Iss: 5987, pp 57-59
TL;DR: It is shown that the ~10-million-year-oldβ Pictoris system hosts a massive giant planet, β Pictoris b, located 8 to 15 astronomical units from the star, which confirms that gas giant planets form rapidly within disks and validates the use of disk structures as fingerprints of embedded planets.
Abstract: Here, we show that the ~10-million-year-old β Pictoris system hosts a massive giant planet, β Pictoris b, located 8 to 15 astronomical units from the star. This result confirms that gas giant planets form rapidly within disks and validates the use of disk structures as fingerprints of embedded planets. Among the few planets already imaged, β Pictoris b is the closest to its parent star. Its short period could allow for recording of the full orbit within 17 years.
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TL;DR: In 2014, the Science Definition Team (SDT) of the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) mission presented a design reference mission (DRM) for an implementation of WFIRST using one of the 2.4m, Hubble-quality telescopes recently made available to NASA as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: This report describes the 2014 study by the Science Definition Team (SDT) of the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) mission. It is a space observatory that will address the most compelling scientific problems in dark energy, exoplanets and general astrophysics using a 2.4-m telescope with a wide-field infrared instrument and an optical coronagraph. The Astro2010 Decadal Survey recommended a Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope as its top priority for a new large space mission. As conceived by the decadal survey,
WFIRST would carry out a dark energy science program, a microlensing program to
determine the demographics of exoplanets, and a general observing program
utilizing its ultra wide field. In October 2012, NASA chartered a Science
Definition Team (SDT) to produce, in collaboration with the WFIRST Study Office
at GSFC and the Program Office at JPL, a Design Reference Mission (DRM) for an
implementation of WFIRST using one of the 2.4-m, Hubble-quality telescope
assemblies recently made available to NASA. This DRM builds on the work of the
earlier WFIRST SDT, reported by Green et al. (2012) and the previous WFIRST-2.4
DRM, reported by Spergel et. (2013). The 2.4-m primary mirror enables a mission
with greater sensitivity and higher angular resolution than the 1.3-m and 1.1-m
designs considered previously, increasing both the science return of the
primary surveys and the capabilities of WFIRST as a Guest Observer facility.
The addition of an on-axis coronagraphic instrument to the baseline design
enables imaging and spectroscopic studies of planets around nearby stars.
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TL;DR: A review of the current knowledge of the occurrence of planets around other stars, their orbital distances and eccentricities, the orbital spacings and mutual inclinations in multi-planet systems, the orientation of the host star's rotation axis, and the properties of planets in binary-star systems can be found in this paper.
Abstract: The basic geometry of the Solar System—the shapes, spacings, and orientations of the planetary orbits—has long been a subject of fascination as well as inspiration for planet-formation theories. For exoplanetary systems, those same properties have only recently come into focus. Here we review our current knowledge of the occurrence of planets around other stars, their orbital distances and eccentricities, the orbital spacings and mutual inclinations in multiplanet systems, the orientation of the host star's rotation axis, and the properties of planets in binary-star systems.
824 citations
Cites background from "A Giant Planet Imaged in the Disk o..."
...Some stunning individual systems have been reported (Marois et al. 2010, Lagrange et al. 2010), but the surevys indicate that fewer planets are found than would be predicted by extrapolating the power-law of Eqn....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors measured the accretion rate onto seed masses ranging from a large planetesimal to a fully grown 10-Earth-mass core and test different particle sizes, concluding that pebble accretion can resolve the long-standing core accretion timescale conflict.
Abstract: The observed lifetimes of gaseous protoplanetary discs place strong constraints on gas and ice giant formation in the core accretion scenario. The approximately 10-Earth-mass solid core responsible for the attraction of the gaseous envelope has to form before gas dissipation in the protoplanetary disc is completed within 1–10 million years. Building up the core by collisions between km-sized planetesimals fails to meet this timescale constraint, especially at wide stellar separations. Nonetheless, gas-giant planets are detected by direct imaging at wide orbital distances. In this paper, we numerically study the growth of cores by the accretion of cm-sized pebbles loosely coupled to the gas. We measure the accretion rate onto seed masses ranging from a large planetesimal to a fully grown 10-Earth-mass core and test different particle sizes. The numerical results are in good agreement with our analytic expressions, indicating the existence of two accretion regimes, one set by the azimuthal and radial particle drift for the lower seed masses and the other, for higher masses, by the velocity at the edge of the Hill sphere. In the former, the optimally accreted particle size increases with core mass, while in the latter the optimal size is centimeters, independent of core mass. We discuss the implications for rapid core growth of gas-giant and ice-giant cores. We conclude that pebble accretion can resolve the long-standing core accretion timescale conflict. This requires a near-unity dust-to-gas ratio in the midplane, particle growth to mm and cm and the formation of massive planetesimals or low radial pressure support. The core growth timescale is shortened by a factor 30–1000 at 5 AU and by a factor 100–10 000 at 50 AU, compared to the gravitationally focused accretion of, respectively, low-scale-height planetesimal fragments or standard km-sized planetesimals.
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Cites background from "A Giant Planet Imaged in the Disk o..."
...Another example of a directly imaged gas-giant planet, β Pictoris b (Lagrange et al. 2010), orbits the host star at approximately 10 AU....
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Stanford University1, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory2, University of California, Berkeley3, University of Toronto4, National Research Council5, Space Telescope Science Institute6, University of Arizona7, Princeton University8, University of California, Los Angeles9, Arizona State University10, University of California, Santa Cruz11, Université de Montréal12, Search for extraterrestrial intelligence13, Ames Research Center14, American Museum of Natural History15, Cornell University16, University of Georgia17, California Institute of Technology18, Johns Hopkins University19
TL;DR: Observations ofBeta Pictoris clearly detect the planet, Beta Pictoris b, in a single 60-s exposure with minimal postprocessing, and fitting the Keplerian orbit of Beta Pic b using the new position together with previous astrometry gives a factor of 3 improvement in most parameters over previous solutions.
Abstract: The Gemini Planet Imager is a dedicated facility for directly imaging and spectroscopically characterizing extrasolar planets. It combines a very high-order adaptive optics system, a diffraction-suppressing coronagraph, and an integral field spectrograph with low spectral resolution but high spatial resolution. Every aspect of the Gemini Planet Imager has been tuned for maximum sensitivity to faint planets near bright stars. During first-light observations, we achieved an estimated H band Strehl ratio of 0.89 and a 5-σ contrast of 10(6) at 0.75 arcseconds and 10(5) at 0.35 arcseconds. Observations of Beta Pictoris clearly detect the planet, Beta Pictoris b, in a single 60-s exposure with minimal postprocessing. Beta Pictoris b is observed at a separation of 434 ± 6 milliarcseconds (mas) and position angle 211.8 ± 0.5°. Fitting the Keplerian orbit of Beta Pic b using the new position together with previous astrometry gives a factor of 3 improvement in most parameters over previous solutions. The planet orbits at a semimajor axis of [Formula: see text] near the 3:2 resonance with the previously known 6-AU asteroidal belt and is aligned with the inner warped disk. The observations give a 4% probability of a transit of the planet in late 2017.
754 citations
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...J Opt Soc Am A Opt Image Sci Vis 19(10):2100–2111....
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...The planet has been detected by VLT/ NACO (10), Gemini/NICI (41), and the Magellan AO system (42)....
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...4 pc), A6V star has a bright, edge-on debris disk (35) and a directly imaged super-Jupiter, β Pic b, orbiting at ’10 AU (10)....
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TL;DR: The detection of a dust trap in the disk around the star Oph IRS 48 is reported using observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the difference in distribution of big grains versus small grains/gas can be modeled with a vortex-shaped dust trap triggered by a companion.
Abstract: The statistics of discovered exoplanets suggest that planets form efficiently. However, there are fundamental unsolved problems, such as excessive inward drift of particles in protoplanetary disks during planet formation. Recent theories invoke dust traps to overcome this problem. We report the detection of a dust trap in the disk around the star Oph IRS 48 using observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The 0.44-millimeter–wavelength continuum map shows high-contrast crescent-shaped emission on one side of the star, originating from millimeter-sized grains, whereas both the mid-infrared image (micrometer-sized dust) and the gas traced by the carbon monoxide 6-5 rotational line suggest rings centered on the star. The difference in distribution of big grains versus small grains/gas can be modeled with a vortex-shaped dust trap triggered by a companion.
678 citations
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TL;DR: High-contrast observations with the Keck and Gemini telescopes have revealed three planets orbiting the star HR 8799, with projected separations of 24, 38, and 68 astronomical units.
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors present evolutionary models for cool brown dwarfs and extra-solar giant planets and show that irradiation effects can substantially affect the radius of sub-jovian mass giant planets.
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