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Topic Name: The discovery of third planet, TrES-3
Category: STAR (Space, Telecommunications & Radioscience)
Research persons: Francis T. O'Donovan, David Charbonneau, Gáspár Á. Bakos, Georgi Mandushev, Edward W. Dunham, Timothy M. Brown, David W. Latham, Guillermo Torres, Alessandro Sozzetti, Géza Kovács, Mark E. Everett, Nairn Baliber, Márton G. Hidas, Gilbert A. Esquerdo,
Location: 1400 West Mars Hill Road Flagstaff AZ 86001 Phone: (928) 774-3358, United States
Details
An international team of astronomers with the Trans-atlantic Exoplanet Survey
today announce the discovery of their third planet, TrES-3. The new planet was
identified by astronomers looking for transiting planets – that is, planets that
pass in front of their home star – using a network of small automated telescopes
in Arizona, California, and the Canary Islands. TrES-3 was discovered in the
constellation Hercules about 10 degrees west of Vega, the brightest star in the
summer skies.
"TrES-3 is an unusual planet as it orbits its parent star in just 31 hours!,"
said Georgi Mandushev, Lowell Observatory astronomer. "That is to say, the year
on this planet lasts less than one and a third days. It is also a very massive
planet – about twice the mass of the solar system's biggest planet, Jupiter –
and is one of the planets with the shortest known periods."
The new planet TrES-3 was first noticed by Lowell Observatory's Planet Search
Survey Telescope (PSST), set up and operated by Edward Dunham and Georgi
Mandushev. The Sleuth telescope, maintained by David Charbonneau (CfA) and
Francis O'Donovan (Caltech), at Caltech's Palomar Observatory also observed
transits of TrES-3, confirming the initial detections. TrES-3 is about 800
light-years distant and because it is so close to its host star, it is very hot,
about 1,500 degrees Kelvin.
"TrES-3 will be an intriguing object to study more deeply, said Edward
Dunham, Lowell Observatory instrument scientist. "For example, its tight orbit
causes it to be illuminated very strongly. This may make it possible to measure
the variation in reflected light as it goes through its phases. This will tell
us how reflective its atmosphere is."
By definition, a transiting planet passes directly between Earth and the
star, causing a slight dimming of the star's light in a manner similar to that
caused when the moon passes between the Sun and Earth during a solar eclipse. To
look for transits, the small telescopes are automated to take wide-field timed
exposures of the clear skies on as many nights as possible. When an observing
run is completed for a particular field — usually over an approximate two-month
period — astronomers measure very precisely the light from every star in the
field in order to detect the possible signature of a transiting planet. "TrES-3
blocks off about 2.5 percent of the light of the star as it passes in front of
it," said Mandushev. "With our telescopes, we can measure this tiny drop in the
star's brightness and deduce the presence of a planet there."
TrES-3 was also observed by members of the Hungarian Automated Telescope
Network (HATNet). The study's lead author, Francis O'Donovan of Caltech,
highlighted the teamwork between TrES and HAT. "The search for extrasolar
planets is an exciting and competitive field. I was happy to see that
cooperation between separate teams led to a rapid confirmation of this planet,"
said O'Donovan.
In order to help confirm they had found a planet, HATNet's Gaspar Bakos and
CfA's Guillermo Torres switched from the 10-centimeter TrES telescopes to one of
the 10-meter telescopes at the W. M. Keck Observatory on the summit of Mauna
Kea, Hawaii. Using this giant telescope, they confirmed that they had found a
new planet. In order to measure accurately the size and other properties of
TrES-3, astronomers also made follow up observations of it with bigger
telescopes at Lowell Observatory and Fred L. Whipple Observatory in Arizona, and
with the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope in Hawaii.
Other authors of the paper "TrES-3: A Nearby, Massive, Transiting Hot Jupiter
in a 31-hour Orbit," accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, are
Gaspar Bakos, David Charbonneau, David Latham, Alessandro Sozzetti, Robert
Stefanik, and Guillermo Torres of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics; Timothy Brown, Nairn Baliber, and Marton Hidas of the Las Cumbres
Observatory Global Telescope; Geza Kovacs of Konkoly Observatory in Hungary;
Mark Everett and Gilbert Esquerdo of the Planetary Science Institute; Markus
Rabus, Hans Deeg, and Juan Belmonte of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canaries
in Tenerife, Spain; and Lynne
Funded:
This research is funded by NASA through the Origins of Solar Systems Program
In The Images-
1.A computer-generated simulation of TrES-3 as seen from
the night side, with its host star in the distance. The planet's home star is
slightly smaller and cooler than the Sun, and is about six times larger than the
planet. TrES-3 is a gas giant, similar to our own Jupiter but about 30 percent
bigger and about twice as massive. Unlike Jupiter, however, TrES-3 is very close
to its parent star and orbits it in 31 hours. That means that the year on TrES-3
lasts less than one and one-third Earth days. Credit: Jeffrey Hall, Lowell
Observatory
2.A computer-generated simulation of TrES-3 crossing
(transiting) the disk of its host star. TrES-3 transits farther from the disk
center than any other known transiting planet. The transit of TrES-3 causes a
drop in the brightness of its home star of about two and a half percent. This
slight dimming of the star's light was noticed and measured by the TrES
researchers, who used the parameters of the transit to determine the planet's
mass, size and other properties. Credit: Jeffrey Hall, Lowell Observatory
 
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