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My Exoplanet Discoveries [Formerly "KIC 7848638 - My First Solar System"]

ProtoJeb21

By ProtoJeb21
in Science & Spaceflight

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Questions about this system  

26 members have voted

  1. 1. Which is Your Favorite Object in the System?

    • Chantico (KIC 7848638 b)
      2
    • Montu (KIC 7848638 c)
      1
    • Sethlans (KIC 7848638 d)
      4
    • Kupole (KIC 7848638 e)
      14
    • Indra (KIC 7848638 f)
      0
    • Vajra (KIC 7848638 f-1)
      5
    • Koyash (KIC 7848638)
      1

  2. 2. What Should Be The New Name for Indra?

This poll is closed to new votes


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KAL 9000

KAL 9000

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SCREW YOU, TRAPPIST-1! WE'VE GOT MOAR HABITABLE PLANETS HERE!

EPIC 210693462.01 is very promising, but it needs a better name... 

Of course, the habitable planet needs an Earth-like name. Natalie is just weird. Why name a planet a normal Earth name? It deserves respect! Earth 2.0 is already taken by Proxima b or one of the TRAPPIST-1 planets, though...

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ProtoJeb21

ProtoJeb21

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THE DAILY ROUNDUP

I'll continue with TDR, because I doubt everyone wants to have to go visit another forum/chat page to hear about my discoveries. Anyways, over the last several days, thanks to the great work of users like Shutcheon, Vidar, and @Cabbink, the Red Dwarf Candidate Search has surpassed 100 candidates! Yay! But I've started to turn my attention to candidates around larger stars. For this Daily Roundup, I'll be listing some of the candidates I'VE found around larger stars from spectral types K through F. In addition, enjoy some of the weirdest star's I've ever found!

  • EPIC 212157262 System: I found this just today, and it is a GREAT find. Both candidates are incredibly likely yet inhospitable to life as we know it. The first is a 3.08 RE planet taking about a week to orbit the parent star. As a result it is being roasted at 815*K (1,007.3*F). The next candidate - which I actually found first - is possibly a "Water Giant" like Gliese 1214b, with 2.25 times the radius of Earth and a year of 13.7 days. Its temperature is calculated to be around 656*K (721.1*F), which would result in a VERY steamy planet. Both are likely to be tidally locked with the host star.
  • EPIC 220395236b: I hate this thing. Why? Because it makes my brain melt. the 3.2 Re ice giant orbits an F-type main sequence star with a "year" just 11.7 hours long. This thing is literally skimming right above the surface of the star! As a result it has the greatest temperature of any candidate I've ever come across - FORTY-SIX HUNDRED DEGREES FAHRENHEIT. This is so horrifically hot that I wonder whether this thing could exist or not. If it's real, then it may not be an ice giant...but rather an enormous rocky core leftover from a dead Hot Jupiter. As such it could either be the largest rocky planet in the Universe, or a pure black ice giant literally glowing a vibrant blood red. For months I've been looking for a planet truly suitable for the name "Tartarus", the Hell's Hell of Greek Mythology and the pit of absolute evil and terror. I think, after all this time, I've finally found a planet hellish enough to be worthy of such a name.
  • EPIC 212516905: A very, very, VERY tiny ultracool dwarf star. It's quite small, even by TRAPPIST-1's standards. At 0.099 solar radii it's smaller than Jupiter! Oddly, it's more massive than TRAPPIST-1, having about 0.146 times the mass of the Sun. Its temperature is only around 2279*K (3,642.5*F), which - believe it or not - is nearly 1,000*F COOLER than Tartarus. Please, give me a break. On the bring side this star may have a planet similar to good old TRAPPIST-1g. That's a plus!
  • EPIC 228712878b: A rather likely orange dwarf candidate planet. The host star is similar in size, mass and temperature as Kepler-62. Meanwhile, the planet is more similar to Neptune than any of the Kepler-62 planets, with 4.03 times the radius of Earth orbiting every 14.7108 days with a temperature of 515*K (467*F). Not a terrible place in the grand scheme of things.
  • EPIC 201578486: The Deoxys Star (as I call it) has a bizarre double-helix light curve. It almost looks like a strand of DNA, hence its name. But believe it or not there are more of this weird "Helix Variables" running amok in the K2 data. Deoxys just happens to be the only one I've found. The parameters of the star may shed light onto why it produces such weird light fluctuations. It is quite large - 2.67 RSol and 1.888 MSol. On first glance it may seem like your rather typical orange sub-giant star (which are quite common in the K2 data, surprisingly), but it isn't. Deoxys is VERY hot - 7,273*K to be exact. This means the star is an A-Class Main Sequence star, which are a rather rare find in the entirety of the Kepler/K2 data. It's possible that certain sized A-class stars undergo the variations seen with Deoxys, but I will have to search more to fin out.
  • EPIC 212679181b and EPIC 201205683b: Okay, I said that I won't do any red dwarf candidates this time...but I can't NOT talk about these two candidates. They belong to a rare group of very short-period Earth-sized to Super Earth-sized planets orbiting their red dwarf parents with years less than two days. As such there are incredibly hot (duh), much more hellish than most M-dwarf planets. The first of the two is a rather small 0.82 RE planet taking just 1.0547 days (25.313 hours) to orbit its star, resulting in a temperature in excess of 824*K (1,023.5*F). Now that we've got the most extreme one out of the way, it's time to move onto the next. It's even smaller (0.774 RE) and has a quicker year (0.57806 days/13.87 hours) than the first, but has a lower temperature of 782*K (947.9*F). That's because the host star is smaller as well, only around 21% the radius and 20% the mass of the Sun.
  • EPIC 211087003b: I went crazy over this star a few months back due to the possibility of up to four ice giants around it. While a single planet is more likely, this is one of my best candidates EVER. The 4.42 RE candidate orbits the F-class host star once every 28.29789 days, resulting in a temperature of 687*K (776.9*F). As noted before, more planets are possible due to an unexplained large dip in the ExoFOP data not associated with this planet. If an actual candidate, it's a whopping 10.238 RE (based on a transit depth around 5625 ppm), but as of right now I am unable to figure out its orbital period and by extension its temperature and climate.
  • EPIC 211319617b: Another planet that should not exist. The K-dwarf host star seems normal enough at 0.643 RSol, 0.676 MSol, and 5354*K. At first glance the only odd thing about the star is its unusually high temperature compared to that of other similar sized stars. However, everything falls apart when you read that it's metal content is a near-impossible -1.00 [Fe/H], with a huge error bar reaching as low as -1.57 [Fe/H]. A star this metal poor should NOT have ANY planets around it at all; there would be too little heavy material to form them. But here we have a 2.276 RE Mini-Neptune orbiting the star every 8.8674 days. And this is no "possible candidate" - oh no, its transits are so obvious even the blind can see that they're caused by a planet! Okay, that's quite a stretch...but you get the gist. It's obvious that a planet orbits the star, even though it makes no sense whatsoever. I'm so tempted to unleash my inner ShoddyCast on this planet...but I must resist.

Okay, that's all I'm going to do for now. I've got a bunch of really good candidates (over 40 to be exact) that I forgot I put in their own collection, so I've got some more analysis to do. Who knows what weirdos will pop up next time?

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Cabbink

Cabbink

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Probably. I mean, Imagine getting so close you explode before reaching the planet. Also, Tartarus would be rocky(The Gas would have been thrown away by now) and you would need mainsails to LAND(You aint returning).

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ProtoJeb21

ProtoJeb21

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THE "DAILY" ROUNDUP

With the advances in finding candidate exoplanets over the past few weeks, there has been literally no time at all to type a full Daily Roundup. However, I finally have the chance. Exoplanet Explorers is temporarily glitched, and I'm also now on summer break, so now I can FINALLY present some of the greatest discoveries so far! This list will include planets found by me, @Cabbink, shutcheon, Vidar87, and Libmar96, which is....quite a lot. I won't present all of them but I will show off every single multi-planet system so far found.

  • EPIC 220221272: This tiny red dwarf has been the subject of much discussion lately. After an analysis done by Jessie Cristiansen in May, and another one done by shutcheon a few weeks later, it appeared to be that the star had just three planets. However, it turned out that the candidate once thought as noise was actually most likely a planet. Only a few days ago Vidar managed to find a fifth candidate. And just today, I did the most in-depth analysis of the planets' radius values done so far and put higher constraints on their sizes. These five planets are 0.907, 0.915, 1.22, 1.195, and 1.38 RE, orbit every 2.2314, 4.194, 6.6775, 9.721, and 13.624 days, and have equilibrium temperatures calculated to be at 544, 441, 377, 333, and 298oK. The outermost planet appears to be potentially habitable, but with a rather high equilibrium temperature it is likely to be an "eyeball planet" with a twilight zone ocean trapped between deserts of sand and ice.
  • EPIC 210696763: Another well-known red dwarf multiple candidate system, this time having four planets. The star is not so much larger than EPIC 220221272, which makes this system an interesting opportunity to see how planetary systems evolve around very similar hosts. This system was thought to be a five-planet system with a large habitable zone Super-Earth, but for some reason the obvious transits seen on EE were never in the SFF or Everest 2 light curve data for EPIC 210696763. Maybe they screwed up the designation. So that just leaves four planets. The first one is a 0.976 RE rocky planet with a year of 2.624 days, but is actually the oddball of the system. All the other three planets are triplets. The three are 1.26278, 1.274, and 1.27083 times the size of Earth and have very similar orbital periods - 3.649, 5.767, and 7.984 days. The system represents another interesting opportunity, this time to see how three triplet planets can turn out as completely different worlds. Note that I am continuing to search for smaller planets in both these systems and will soon do Transit Timing Variation analyses to determine the compositions of each planets.
  • EPIC 211428897: This system is most likely a four-planet system, but may have a fifth. The first and largest planet is a known candidate with 0.86 RE orbiting once every 1.6106 days, or 39 hours. I theorize that this planet could be a bizarre world with seas of liquid metals, maybe something like Gallium or Mercury. The next planet is smaller at 0.6624 RE and takes just 2.187 days to orbit its star. Unlike the others in the system, this one was found by me. The other two were found by shutcheon; they are 0.70467 and 0.65583 RE and complete their orbits in 4.966 and 6.2606 days. There could be a fifth planet with a year somewhere around 22 days, which would place it in the inner portion of the system's habitable zone. However, there is not enough evidence to support this claim. It is entirely possible that other planets are present in the system.
  • EPIC 201528828: This is my first three-planet system I've ever found! Also designated TYC-281-875-1, this is a rather hot orange dwarf around 76% the radius and 82% the mass of the Sun. Two Super-Earths and one Mini-Neptune were found to orbit the star. The first two planets are likely rocky, with radii of 1.52 and 1.20 RE. However, they are also orbiting very close to the mother star, with short orbital periods of 2.636 and 4.719 days. I have no idea why but planets with years around 2, 4, and/or 6 days are INCREDIBLY common in the K2 data. Whatever the case, these two rocky planets have high surface temperatures of 1,084oK and 893oK, meaning that their surfaces will either be dotted in lava lakes or be composed of rather squishy rock, similar to that of Venus. The final planet of the system is a 2.60 RE Mini-Neptune orbiting every 14.091 days with an equilibrium temperature at 620oK.
  • EPIC 228801451: One of my newest multi-planet systems. There are two very obvious planets and a possible third planet. The first one is quite a horrific abomination of nature. This 1.24 RE rocky planet takes a mere 14 hours to orbit a star with around 53% the luminosity of the Sun. The result? A charbroiled, molten hellscape with temperatures soaring to 1,892oK (about 2,946oF). FUN! At least the next planet isn't as bad. It's a 2.11 RE Super-Earth with a much longer orbital period of 8.3259 days, resulting in an average temperature of 780oK (944oF). Okay, that's hotter than Venus...but still an improvement! There also appears to be a third planet around 2.83 RE, but its second transit is taken out by a huge gap in the light curve. Darn it.
  • EPIC 212357477: A system that could be incredibly promising or incredibly hostile. The first planet, a known candidate, was spotted by Cabbink and was first thought to be a Mini-Neptune. There also appeared to be a long-period transit from a possible Super-Venus. However, using the transits of the first planet, I was able to refine the star's parameters and figure out the true nature of these planets. The first one is a possible Steam Giant, which is essentially a gas dwarf with a giant rocky core and where all the hydrogen is water vapor. I shudder to think about the greenhouse effect on this planet. It is 1.929 RE, orbits every 6.3265 days, and has an equilibrium temperature of a pleasant 908oK, similar to Mu Arae c (Dulcinea). That long-period planet now appears to be a near-Earth-twin, at 1.49 RE with a year of about 283.836 days and a temperature around 254oK, the same as Earth's equilibrium temperature. However, if I'm wrong about the star's parameters...this beautiful world is doomed.
  • EPIC 212525618b: Oh, hi there Iona! I've done some more analysis on it a few weeks back and found that it is most likely a single planet in a 14.4-day orbit. I was also able to re-calculate stellar parameters, discovering that the host star is more likely to be around 94% the size of the Sun and with a temperature around 5500 Kelvin. This is supported by Ian Crossfield's observations with the Keck Telescope, suggesting that EPIC 212525618 is a much larger and hotter star than a measly red dwarf. That makes Iona a hot Water Giant like GJ 1214 b. It is 2.557 RE and has a temperature of 690oK. However, these are upper limits, and it seems more likely that Iona is closer to 2 Earth radii and much more similar to GJ 1214 b in terms of temperature.
  • EPIC 211413752: The largest system of candidates around a star larger than a red dwarf my group has ever found. Well, technically, shutcheon found them all. This system appears to be 5 (and possibly 6) hot ice giants circling an F-class star. Estimates on ExoFOP place the star at 3.66 solar radii, but I was able to re-size the star at 1.18 RSol and 1.07 MSol. The five main candidates are 3.577, 3.162, 3.88, 4.239, and 3.398 times the size of Earth, orbit every 2.1522, 4.529, 9.325, 18.384, and 26.266 days, and have temperatures of 1,358, 1,050, 826, 658, and 586 Kelvin. Quite a unique system. The sixth planet is, as of now, the most mysterious and has no constrain parameters.

 

PART TWO WILL BE POSTED TOMORROW! STAY TUNED!

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ProtoJeb21

ProtoJeb21

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56 minutes ago, _Augustus_ said:

Uhh, it's been 4 days....

 

22 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

I think the aliens have abducted him. He's getting too close to finding them :wink:

 

9 minutes ago, StupidAndy said:

I remember him saying something somewhere that something is taking time so he can't do the thing yet

Four days already? Well, time sure flies when there's a whole lot of craziness in the Kepler/K2 data. I've been rather caught up with EPIC 212157262, along with analysis of other systems like Kepler-409 and Kepler-453. I'm also probably going to be able to get the code TTVFast to analyze Kepler-409b and the five candidates of EPIC 220221272 pretty soon.

Also I got back to playing science mode in KSP.

Don't worry, I'll have Part 2 out tomorrow. As a bit of a treat, I'm just going to say that I may or may not have possibly found a second planet around the binary stars of Kepler-453 orbiting every 415 days.

P.S: Rest In Peace, EPIC 212357477.02. You will be forgotten and overshadowed by new disc---I mean remembered. Yes, you will be remembered for some unidentified period of time.

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ProtoJeb21

ProtoJeb21

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THE DAILY ROUNDUP, PART 2

I apologize for Part 2 being uploaded so late. Even with the simulation errors running rampant in Exoplanet Explorers, more discoveries were being pumped out. Not only has one particular system been getting more and more confusing as the days go on, but Vidar and I have devised a new strategy to browse Everest 2 light curves online. While tedious, it is almost guaranteed to reveal at least one likely planetary candidate. This strategy has led to the discovery of two new potentially habitable worlds.

  • EPIC 220364502 b: A large Super-Earth of about 1.40 RE, similar in size to EPIC 220221272.01. It is also quite similar in temperature - this new candidate has an equilibrium temperature of 298oK, the same as the fifth planet of 220221272. However, the host stars are quite different. EPIC 220364502 b orbits a larger red dwarf closer to 1/3rd the size of the Sun, compared to the 0.25 solar radii size of EPIC 220221272. The new planet was found by Vidar and orbits a Campaign 8 star once every 22.521 days.
  • EPIC 213044320: Another red dwarf, this time close to half the size of our Sun. Everest 2 data shows a horde of likely transit events, which I have interpreted into two signals. The first is a 1.46 RE planet orbiting every 28.1042 days, sigma 8. While within the inner limit of the habitable zone, its large size and rather high equilibrium temperature of 303oK lead me to believe it is more likely a Super-Venus. The second signal is quite dubious with a sigma of 3.5. That's because it only has two transits. Candidate 2 is 1.21 RE and has an orbital period of 42.958 days, placing it within a more conservative habitable zone. I doubt that this candidate would be in any threat of a runaway greenhouse. However, due to the iffy nature of both candidates and the plethora of extra transit events in the light curve, I believe that these two habitable zone planets may actually be a single, sorter period candidate. But that doesn't diminish the possibility of life in the system. A possible long-period candidate of 1.89 RE with a 7.356-hour transit and a sigma of 6.07 holds promise. Depending on the actual size of the star this could be a "Mega-Europa" or a rather temperate oceanic planet.

These two new potential red dwarf systems are cool and all, but I bet everyone is wondering about EPIC 212157262. I mentioned in a status update last week that this system was the one giving me so much trouble and was partially responsible for the delay of this Daily Roundup. Well, it's complicated. What I can say without a doubt is that there are more than just two planets in this system. When I first reported EPIC 212157262 last month, I had found two large candidate planets of 3.08 and 2.25 RE orbiting a somewhat small yellow dwarf every 7.151 and 13.615 days. Seems simple enough. However, a new update with LcViewer enabled me to access the Everest 2 data for all stars in K2 campaigns 0 through 8. The Everest 2 data is the best-corrected of any K2 data in existence and is free of any glitch contamination that the unprocessed data has. With it, an absolutely enormous amount of transit events I had not seen before emerged. I was quickly able to pick out an additional FOUR candidates, bringing the total up to 6. However, some of them were rather dubious, and thanks to Shutcheon's help I managed to find the two most likely. These new candidates orbit every 2.8727 and 30.180 days, and are both Super-Earths of 1.43 and 1.71 RE. But even with two new well-constrained signals, many more transits were left with unclear origins. This time I managed to find FOUR MORE CANDIDATES in the data, which would bring the planet total of EPIC 212157262 up to 8 - second only to HD 10180 with its nine planets. This system has proven to be incredibly difficult to analyze, so I assume that these are either the correct or wrong signals. Honestly, I just don't know. 

  • C05: One incredibly odd Super-Earth of 1.45 RE. It appears to be orbiting right next door to C02, with an orbital period of 13.1479 days. However, the two planets are close to a 100:97 resonance, which seems rather stable. Sigma of 6.
  • C06: A somewhat longer period candidate with only two transits - which both look pretty good, despite a sigma of 3.2. This planet is 1.37 RE and orbits every 37.72915 days.
  • C07: Like C06, this only has two transits, but has an even better sigma of 7.972. This is a Super-Earth of 1.54 RE orbiting 60.4575 days, and as such is the friendliest planet in the system - albeit still uninhabitable.
  • C08: The smallest candidate of the system at just 1.13 RE. It takes just over 3 days to orbit the parent star and has a decent sigma of 5.5.

Yep...this system is quite the handful. I plan on letting one of the scientists know because I need all the help I can get with this system. No one, not even Shutcheon, has a good explanation for this weird system. One hypothesis was that this was a system of two stars, both with transiting planets. However, Keck images on ExoFOP disprove that. So for now EPIC 212157262 is an 8-candidate enigma.

Now, time to get back to the discoveries of June I have yet to mention.

  • THANATOS: Actually designated EPIC 212432685.01, this is @Cabbink's horrifying find and is quite similar to my planet Tartarus. Orbiting an F-type main sequence star every 12.75 hours, this is a 2.22 RE Super-Earth with temperatures in excess of 4,412oF. While not as hot as Tartarus, the same conditions are likely present here as well. These include a crushing atmosphere, tungsten volcanoes, iron vapor clouds, oceans of molten metals, an overkill greenhouse effect, liquid/solid tin rain, freak lightning storms, and an absolute onslaught of UV radiation.
    • Also, on a side note I'm having trouble finding Tartarus in Everest 2 data, so it might be a false positive.
  • EPIC 212357477: Sorry to say this, but the incredibly promising potential long-period planet I found is a false positive. I will give you some time to mourn.
  • You done? Good, let's continue.
  • EPIC 201132684: A likely four-planet (maybe a 5-planet) system found by me and Vidar. He uncovered the second planet in order from the star, which is a 2.868 RE Mini-Neptune orbiting every 10.061 days. It has an equilibrium temperature of 767oK and is near a 2:1 mean-motion resonance with the innermost candidate. This inner planet is a likely rocky planet of 1.503 RE orbiting every 5.897 days with an equilibrium temperature of 913oK. It was found by me and has a good sigma value of 11.693. All other candidates were also found by me. Next out is a 3.01 RE ice giant with a year of 25.489 days and a temperature of 562oK, and after that is a likely long-period ice giant of 4.06 RE taking a calculated 462.495 days to orbit the host star. The long-period candidate has an equilibrium temperature around 214oK, making it within the outer edge of the habitable zone. These four candidates are the most likely to exist, but there's a 3.2-sigma candidate of 1.48 RE orbiting between the second and third candidates with a year of 19.119 days. However, it may just be noise.
  • EPIC 203533312 b: A known candidate exoplanet I stumbled across that has proven to be the most horrifying planet in the Universe. This freakish abomination is over 3.1 times the size of Earth and takes just FOUR HOURS to orbit a star with over 9 times the luminosity of our Sun. The result? HELL. This planet seems to be MERGING with its host star and has a temperature of over 5,100oK. That is nearly EIGHT THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED DEGREES FAHRENHEIT. For comparison, Kelt-9b has a front side temperature of 7,820oF. Just....WHYYYY.
  • EPIC 220194974/EPIC 220194953: Two small red dwarfs of 0.41 and 0.36 solar radii that, despite being designated separately, are actually in a binary pair. Around one of them is a system of three sub-Earths discovered by Vidar. These little planets are 0.625, 0.759, and 0.769 Earth radii and take just 4.383, 6.926, and 9.766 days to orbit their star. However, it's possible that BOTH stars may have planets. Because the light curves of the two dwarfs are essentially the same, most of the planets are seen in both. If one planet is in a single light curve, then it orbits one of the two stars. Whatever the case, a system with three planets and two stars is pretty amazing.
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SAS123

SAS123

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Now I want to get back into Planet Hunting! I did some planet hunting on Zooniverse a few times before but i didn't really know what to expect from the data. Like I would analyse the light curve but would i get anything out of it or was it just finding planets easier.

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ProtoJeb21

ProtoJeb21

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THE DAILY ROUNDUP

Yes, after all this time, TDR is finally back. There have been many things limiting my exoplanet research over the summer. My schedule was kinda crazy, Exoplanet Explorers is glitched (too many simulated transits are popping up, which means little to no real finds), and more. However, a new beta version for LcViewer is in development, and me along with two other EE users have been able to test it out. I mentioned this version in a status update a few days back. This beta test-version adds a very useful feature into the application: an Automatic Candidate Search using the MLS code/algorithm. We just call it the MLS search. Basically, what it does is it activates the code to search the entire light curve for a periodic signal. For a K2 mission lightcurve, this takes just a few seconds. If the code can find a signal, it appears in a small window where you can phase fold it, highlight it, or search for another. Many signals that the MLS search finds are caused by cyclic stellar variability, but a good amount are likely legitimate planets. Over the last several days I've found a handful of interesting and likely worlds using this new feature.

  • EPIC 212157262: The MLS search has finally solved the mystery of this system! It turns out the system has a grand total of....5 planets. The reason why I thought there were up to 8 planets was due to a VERY quickly orbiting world that has a year of about 0.775 days (~18 hours). It's a rather Earth-sized planet of 1.05 Re with an equilibrium temperature of over 1,700 Kelvin! The better-looking transits of this world were mistaken for many candidates, including the likely 30.18 day signal that shutcheon found. The next new candidate is another Super-Earth of 1.39 Re. It orbits every 21.788 days and has an equilibrium temperature of 567*K. The other three planets with the 2.87, 7.151, and 13.615 day orbits still are great candidates. These new results reveal a very stable, evenly spaced system of five completely different planets: one molten Earth-sized world, one half melted Super-Earth, one hot Mini-Neptune, a steamy "Water Giant", and a hot rocky Super-Earth. This is one of my top three favorite candidate systems found on Exoplanet Explorers.
  • TARTARUS: It's a false positive. Dangit. Let's hope I can find another similar planet candidate worthy of its name.
  • EPIC 216876207: A red dwarf star around a quarter the size of the Sun with one likely candidate. It is an 18-sigma Super Earth with a radius of 1.54 RE. However, what makes this system special is that the planet candidate is one of the best potentially habitable worlds I've found. Orbiting every 32.343 days in the outer part of the habitable zone with a temperature of 220*K, it is cold enough where a thick atmosphere would not doom the planet's habitability. Let's say its greenhouse effect is twice that of Earth - which would result in a temperature increase of 66*K. On Earth, that would raise the planet's temperature to 321*K (118*F). That would be enough the evaporate most water and doom the chances for life. However, that same magnitude greenhouse effect on EPIC 216876207.01 would result in an average temperature of 286*K (55*F), just a tad lower than Earth's average temperature. So even if this world does have a rather powerful greenhouse effect, it will likely still be a habitable temperature. 
  • EPIC 217192839: Two likely rocky Super-Earths were found to orbit this small orange dwarf. The first is 1.52 RE and orbits every 16.038 days, while the second is 1.21 RE and has a year of 26.817 days. Both of these worlds, while likely to have a solid surface to walk on, are both too hot to be habitable. Their equilibrium temperatures are 480*K (404*F) and 404*K (267*F) - not that bad on a cosmic standpoint, and maybe survivable with advanced AC, but too high for liquid water. Still an interesting find.
  • EPIC 217140319: The light curve of this star is rather intriguing. While the MLS search found no periodic signals, there was something else of interest: one large, lone transit-like event in the first half of the data. This potential transit lasts a whopping 19 hours and appears to be from a 0.82 RE long-period planet. This large transit is odd, as the planet orbits a red dwarf only 28% the Sun's radius. As such any transits should be 1-4 hours long for most planets, or 5-10 hours for longer period planets. This can be explained by one of two ways: either the star is much larger than originally estimated, or the long-period candidate has an expansive ring system.
  • EPIC 217742774: This is one candidate that I'm VERY unsure about. The MLS search found a periodic signal of 51.401 days, with just two transit events total. While the signal is statistically significant, the folded transit is rather messy and not entirely convincing. If this object exists, it is a 1.82 RE planet with an equilibrium temperature of 198*K (-103*F). Due to the star's low metal content, this candidate is either a gas dwarf or a world made up of 50-75% water, with a thin icy shell and thick atmosphere - think a "Mega Europa".

Those there were all the discoveries that I made. However, Vidar87 and shutcheon have also found some very interesting things that I want to mention.

  • EE-1, which had 4 Super-Earths found during the first 48 hours of Exoplanet Explorers, actually has SIX planets! I was able to do an analysis on the candidates' radii, and it turns out the system is mostly made of Mini-Neptunes. Only between one and three planets are either rocky or water-rich, and not gaseous.
  • EPIC 211428897 has a fifth small planet orbiting every 3.29 days, right between the candidate I found and C03.
  • EPIC 211562654, a three-planet system found by shutcheon that contains one of the most hellish candidates found, actually has FIVE planets. The two new ones are 1.75 and 1.82 RE, with years lasting just 2.153 and 4.25 days. The innermost planet is an absolute abomination - it's twice the size of Earth, takes less than 12 hours to orbit the star, and has an equilibrium temperature of 2,692*K (4,386*F). That's hot enough to vaporize rock!
  • The red dwarf K2-5 may have a third planet of about 1.2 RE orbiting every 15.4905 days.
  • Vidar87 managed to firm the existence of the promising candidate EPIC 220266255.01 using the BLS search and processed Everest2 data. It's a 1.1 RE planet with an equilibrium temperature of 259*K (6.53*F) and an estimated stellar flux of 1.03. This gives it an Earth Similarity Index value of 0.96!
  • @Cabbink appears to have found something interesting going on with WD 1145+017, a white dwarf ripping apart a planetoid.

That's all the major finds for now. With this new LcViewer beta test, I can safely say that my constant exoplanet research has returned! Expect more updates, discoveries, and candidates over the next few weeks. Right now I'm going through a list of over 960 red dwarfs from K2 Campaign 7, which could take up to a MONTH to go through. Who knows what more planet candidates I will find!

Also, I've started making realistic planet representations using GIMP and Google Earth Pro. So far I've made one of the EPIC 217192839 system, with Earth to scale.

Mo0VL0n.jpg

Edited by ProtoJeb21
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Cabbink

Cabbink

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17 hours ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

 

  • @Cabbink appears to have found something interesting going on with WD 1145+017, a white dwarf ripping apart a planetoid.

 

Well..

Around this white dwarf, there already is a planet. It's probably the least massive planet out there. However, something odd, with either 3X the orbital time or the same orbital time popped up. Interstingly, it has a drasticly different size, about 50% bigger. I'm assuming this is either the same planet, re calculated, Or possibly(and I'm going to light the forums with this) lagranging companions.

Original planet:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WD_1145%2B017_b

It is 0.15 radii. The new object is 0.258 radii, about 600-700 km bigger, or 72% bigger.

:huh:

Edited by Cabbink
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ProtoJeb21

ProtoJeb21

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THE DAILY ROUNDUP

Recently, there has been some MAJOR development regarding the EE-1 system. If you remember from the last DR, this four-planet system was found to host two additional planets. Now it seems like it has a SEVENTH planet. Vidar87 found what appeared to be a likely transit event at epoch 2924.838339 from an object over twice the size of Earth. He suggested that this could be from an object with an orbital period of 19.152 days, which would continue the chain of 2:3 mean-motion resonances of the inner five planets. I tested this out with LcViewer. Using the epoch and period Vidar87 provided, I was able to find out that it is associated with a statistically significant signal, with a sigma of 6.942 - even though most of this candidate's transits overlapped those of other planets. Finally, shutcheon used the Titus-Bode law to see if such an object should even exist. Short answer: yes, it should. Welcome EE-1h! However, shutcheon found that there should be a planet with a period of about 25-29 days to continue the chain of 2:3 resonances. If not, then the whole system would destabilize. Since there are two data gaps in the lightcurve of EE-1, some transits could easily be lost. Shutcheon found that a planet with a period between 25.941 days and 26.254 days could fit into the missing 2:3 resonance slot and explain this one odd lone transit even while all its other transits were taken out by data gaps. He did some analysis that is rather confusing to describe in simpler terms, so I'll just link his results here: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/ianc2/exoplanet-explorers/talk/821/429557?comment=718070&page=1

So, basically, EE-1 now is likely to be an EIGHT-planet system, just like our own! When I'm finally able to do radial velocity measurements of stars, this system will be my first target. Who knows, maybe there could be some other planets further out from the others?

Now it's time for something that a lot of people are probably really excited for: proper names for the EPIC 220221272 and EPIC 212157262 systems! At Vidar87's suggestion, the former system will be named after figures and places from Norse/Germanic myths. 

  • EPIC 220221272: Dagr (Norse personification of the day)
  • C03: Vidar (silent god of vengeance)
  • C04: Hermodr (Norse equivalent of Mercury; rescued his brother Balder from Hel)
  • C02: Gerth (Jotun love interest of Freyr)
  • C05: Muspell (The Norse realm of fire and home of the Fire Jotuns)
  • C01: Freyr (Major Norse god of summer, fertility, and life)
  • C06: Ithunn (Goddess who provides the apples that keeps the gods eternally youthful)

After naming the EPIC 220221272 (Dagr) system, I decided to move onto EPIC 212157262, considering how it is the largest system I've found with the least help. Since the star (and the rest of K2 Campaign 6) is in the constellation of Virgo the Virgin, I decided to name the objects in the system after virgin deities from Greek myths and mortals associated with the virgin goddess Artemis. For the planets, I made sure to chose names of figures with rather unfortunate lives, considering how these 5 planets don't really have a nice existence to begin with (seriously, the coldest one is over 500*F).

  • EPIC 212157262: Astria (virgin Titaness of the stars)
  • C05: Rhoio (sister of Virgo who suffered the terrible wrath of their dangerous father)
  • C03: Chione (a nymph who was killed by Artemis after gaining the attention of Apollo and Hermes)
  • C01: Hemithea (sister of Rhoio who was saved by Apollo, became a goddess, and later turned into Virgo)
  • C02: Arethusa (water nymph and follower of Artemis, later turned into a water spring)
  • C06: Polyphonte (follower of Artemis who was cursed by Aphrodite and eventually became an ill portent for mankind)

One last thing: while typing this up, Vidar87 managed to find a likely 3-planet system around a red dwarf, so I decided to add it in to this Daily Roundup. More planets may be present, but this is what's been found so far.

  • EPIC 220651921: 0.395 RSol, 0.448 MSol, 3945oK, ~0.0388587 LSol, M?V dwarf.
  • C02: 2.15 RE, 3.947 days, 0.0374 AU, 10.9 sigma, 557oK.
  • C01: 2.40 RE, 7.03 days, 0.054954 AU, 10.6 sigma, 463oK.
  • C03: 2.30 RE, 15.895 days, 0.094668 AU, 8.1 sigma, 352oK.

After EE-1 I am pretty sick of Mini-Neptunes. At least the small-ish sizes of these worlds suggest that they could be a bunch of Water Giants. That would be a lot cooler than three small ice giants.

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ProtoJeb21

ProtoJeb21

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THE DAILY ROUNDUP

These past two weeks have seen some major development in the knowledge of several exoplanet systems, as well as the discoveries of many more interesting worlds.

EPIC 210693462: I've been teasing a HUGE reveal about this system for a while now. Originally, it was a red dwarf less than a third the size of our Sun with a likely rocky planet nicknamed Natalie orbiting within the habitable zone every 31 days. After the initial discovery, Ian Crossfield said that the Exoplanet Explorers team would use the Keck Telescopes to take a closer look at the system in late summer to figure out how large the host is. This would, as a result, enable us to determine how large Natalie is and whether it is promising or not for life. On September 10th, 2017, the data and images gathered were uploaded to ExoFOP by David Ciardi. This is the image of EPIC 210693462:

210693462I-dc20170820K.fits.jpg

Whoops, I forgot to say "stars", plural. It turns out that EPIC 210693462 is something none of us on Exoplanet Explorers ever expected: a binary system. Libmar96 was the first to stumble across the results, and he was initially quite pessimistic about the results. The problem with transiting planets in binary systems is that the planets are ALWAYS somewhat larger than initially expected, as the planet would need to block more light from the single star to produce the dip seen in the light curve. Libmar suggested that Natalie would not be a rocky planet, but instead a gas dwarf. However, that does not appear to be the case. The EPIC 210693462 binary is nearly equal in size, which would mean that any planet orbiting the primary would be 30-50% larger than initially determined with single-star data. This means that, taking into account the original radius value of 1.278 RE, Natalie would be between 1.66 and 1.92 RE if it orbits the primary star, a size range most probable if the planet has a significant amount of water in its composition. Instead of being a terrestrial Earth-like world or a hostile Mini-Neptune, Natalie could instead be like the Star Wars planet Mon Calamari - a life-friendly ocean planet with twin suns. But what if the stars aren't red dwarfs? That actually seems unlikely. Look at the scale in arcseconds. Both stars are incredibly tiny, and they're only separated by 0.84 arsec. This, along with the spectroscopic data gathered by multiple observations, suggests that the two stars are most likely M-dwarfs. They may even be much smaller than the original 0.312 RSun size estimate given by Huber et al.

KEPLER-90: I also teased new findings about this system over the last week or two. If you're not familiar, Kepler-90 is the first (and only) 7-planet system found by the Kepler mission. It is like a more compact version of our Solar System - inner rocky planets, mid-range Mini Neptunes, outer Gas Giants - orbiting a star around 20% larger in radius and mass than our Sun. Using a new beta version of LcViewer and an improved BLS Search, shutcheon did an analysis on the system...and found THREE likely new inner planets! These new worlds are 0.80, 1.24, and 1.20 times the size of Earth and orbit every 3.0351, 14.4481, and 18.7855 days. All of them are perfectly in resonance with each other and the other two inner planets, Kepler-90b and Kepler-90c. Things eventually got even MORE complicated, as I managed to find TEN MORE SIGNALS within the group of inner worlds. Most of them are either randomly aligned stellar noise or artifacts from the other planets. However, a few signals hold promise. The most likely of the bunch are, as of now, designated KOI-351.13 and KOI-351.14. Candidate 13 is around 0.77 RE and takes 6.760 days to orbit Kepler-90. The other potential planet, Candidate 14, is around the same size at 0.79 RE but takes 8.454 days to orbit the central star. If real, this would mean that Kepler-90 has a total of TWELVE planets, even higher than our Solar System and the HD 10180 system! Because all 5 of the new candidates are so small, it's probably going to take a while before any of them get confirmed. It's also possible that some of these are false positives, while some of the other possibilities I've found are real planets. Very confusing.

KEPLER-20: Another confirmed Kepler system joins today's Daily Roundup. It has 6 confirmed planets, 5 transiting and one that is not. Two of the planets were the first Earth-sized planets found by Kepler, while 20b is one of the very few "Mega-Earths". Shutcheon managed to find a potential seventh planet, this time a tiny 0.26 RE object orbiting every 0.403727 days, Think of it as The Moon from Hell. However, closer analysis revealed that this object may have a longer orbital period of about 1.232102 days, putting it in a 3:1 resonance with Kepler-20b.

EPIC 210897587: A new find by Vidar87. Using newly processed K2 Campaign 13 data and an upgraded BLS Search, he found THREE likely rocky Super-Earths orbiting a small red dwarf star. The third one is potentially habitable!

  • C02: 1.03 RE, 6.343 days, 0.049493 AU, 473oK, 34.7 sigma.
  • C01: 1.44 RE, 13.855 days, 0.08332 AU, 365oK, 39.7 sigma.
  • C03: 1.16 RE, 40.661 days, 0.17079 AU, 255oK, 28.4 sigma.

This system is absolutely amazing. All of the three planets are most likely real, and would've been confirmed by now if scientists had access to this data earlier. Plus, that final planet is one of the best candidates for potential habitability ever found by Exoplanet Explorers users. Its longer orbital period puts it smack within the habitable zone, giving it just about the same amount of stellar flux Earth receives. It is only a tad larger than Earth, and may be freely rotating if its orbit is eccentric enough. Based on its radius and estimated stellar flux of ~1.00, EPIC 210897587.03 has an Earth Similarity Index value of 0.95!!!

EPIC 210736056: Another multi-planet system found by Vidar87 with a potentially habitable candidate world. The host star is significantly smaller than the previous star at about a quarter the radius and mass of the Sun. There are only two planets in this system, but both are quite unique. The first, EPIC 210736056.02, is the smallest at just 0.88 RE, not that much smaller than Venus. It is also likely similar to Venus, as its orbit of 9.944 days places it at 0.057162 AU, within the "Venus Zone" of the system. The equilibrium temperature of 333oK suggests a stellar flux around twice that of Earth, which would evaporate any water and lead to a terrible runaway greenhouse effect. The second planet, EPIC 210736056.01, is significantly more promising. At 1.32 RE, it's exactly 50% larger than C02, and orbits significantly further out at 0.11675 AU with a year of 29.024 days. This puts C01 within the outer part of the habitable zone and give it an equilibrium temperature of 233oK. This is just about the same as Proxima b and TRAPPIST-1e, indicating a stellar flux 2/3rds that of Earth. The calculated ESI value for this planet is 0.83 - not as good as EPIC 210897587.03, but still VERY good and indicates a potentially life-friendly planet.

 

That's all the significant findings for this week. Vidar87 found some other candidate planets, which you can see HERE. While all interesting, they're quite terrible to live on, so I decided not to cover them. Expect some more potential new candidates from known Kepler systems in the next Daily Roundup.

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Cabbink

Cabbink

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41 minutes ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

THE DAILY ROUNDUP

These past two weeks have seen some major development in the knowledge of several exoplanet systems, as well as the discoveries of many more interesting worlds.

EPIC 210693462: I've been teasing a HUGE reveal about this system for a while now. Originally, it was a red dwarf less than a third the size of our Sun with a likely rocky planet nicknamed Natalie orbiting within the habitable zone every 31 days. After the initial discovery, Ian Crossfield said that the Exoplanet Explorers team would use the Keck Telescopes to take a closer look at the system in late summer to figure out how large the host is. This would, as a result, enable us to determine how large Natalie is and whether it is promising or not for life. On September 10th, 2017, the data and images gathered were uploaded to ExoFOP by David Ciardi. This is the image of EPIC 210693462:

210693462I-dc20170820K.fits.jpg

Whoops, I forgot to say "stars", plural. It turns out that EPIC 210693462 is something none of us on Exoplanet Explorers ever expected: a binary system. Libmar96 was the first to stumble across the results, and he was initially quite pessimistic about the results. The problem with transiting planets in binary systems is that the planets are ALWAYS somewhat larger than initially expected, as the planet would need to block more light from the single star to produce the dip seen in the light curve. Libmar suggested that Natalie would not be a rocky planet, but instead a gas dwarf. However, that does not appear to be the case. The EPIC 210693462 binary is nearly equal in size, which would mean that any planet orbiting the primary would be 30-50% larger than initially determined with single-star data. This means that, taking into account the original radius value of 1.278 RE, Natalie would be between 1.66 and 1.92 RE if it orbits the primary star, a size range most probable if the planet has a significant amount of water in its composition. Instead of being a terrestrial Earth-like world or a hostile Mini-Neptune, Natalie could instead be like the Star Wars planet Mon Calamari - a life-friendly ocean planet with twin suns. But what if the stars aren't red dwarfs? That actually seems unlikely. Look at the scale in arcseconds. Both stars are incredibly tiny, and they're only separated by 0.84 arsec. This, along with the spectroscopic data gathered by multiple observations, suggests that the two stars are most likely M-dwarfs. They may even be much smaller than the original 0.312 RSun size estimate given by Huber et al.

KEPLER-90: I also teased new findings about this system over the last week or two. If you're not familiar, Kepler-90 is the first (and only) 7-planet system found by the Kepler mission. It is like a more compact version of our Solar System - inner rocky planets, mid-range Mini Neptunes, outer Gas Giants - orbiting a star around 20% larger in radius and mass than our Sun. Using a new beta version of LcViewer and an improved BLS Search, shutcheon did an analysis on the system...and found THREE likely new inner planets! These new worlds are 0.80, 1.24, and 1.20 times the size of Earth and orbit every 3.0351, 14.4481, and 18.7855 days. All of them are perfectly in resonance with each other and the other two inner planets, Kepler-90b and Kepler-90c. Things eventually got even MORE complicated, as I managed to find TEN MORE SIGNALS within the group of inner worlds. Most of them are either randomly aligned stellar noise or artifacts from the other planets. However, a few signals hold promise. The most likely of the bunch are, as of now, designated KOI-351.13 and KOI-351.14. Candidate 13 is around 0.77 RE and takes 6.760 days to orbit Kepler-90. The other potential planet, Candidate 14, is around the same size at 0.79 RE but takes 8.454 days to orbit the central star. If real, this would mean that Kepler-90 has a total of TWELVE planets, even higher than our Solar System and the HD 10180 system! Because all 5 of the new candidates are so small, it's probably going to take a while before any of them get confirmed. It's also possible that some of these are false positives, while some of the other possibilities I've found are real planets. Very confusing.

KEPLER-20: Another confirmed Kepler system joins today's Daily Roundup. It has 6 confirmed planets, 5 transiting and one that is not. Two of the planets were the first Earth-sized planets found by Kepler, while 20b is one of the very few "Mega-Earths". Shutcheon managed to find a potential seventh planet, this time a tiny 0.26 RE object orbiting every 0.403727 days, Think of it as The Moon from Hell. However, closer analysis revealed that this object may have a longer orbital period of about 1.232102 days, putting it in a 3:1 resonance with Kepler-20b.

EPIC 210897587: A new find by Vidar87. Using newly processed K2 Campaign 13 data and an upgraded BLS Search, he found THREE likely rocky Super-Earths orbiting a small red dwarf star. The third one is potentially habitable!

  • C02: 1.03 RE, 6.343 days, 0.049493 AU, 473oK, 34.7 sigma.
  • C01: 1.44 RE, 13.855 days, 0.08332 AU, 365oK, 39.7 sigma.
  • C03: 1.16 RE, 40.661 days, 0.17079 AU, 255oK, 28.4 sigma.

This system is absolutely amazing. All of the three planets are most likely real, and would've been confirmed by now if scientists had access to this data earlier. Plus, that final planet is one of the best candidates for potential habitability ever found by Exoplanet Explorers users. Its longer orbital period puts it smack within the habitable zone, giving it just about the same amount of stellar flux Earth receives. It is only a tad larger than Earth, and may be freely rotating if its orbit is eccentric enough. Based on its radius and estimated stellar flux of ~1.00, EPIC 210897587.03 has an Earth Similarity Index value of 0.95!!!

EPIC 210736056: Another multi-planet system found by Vidar87 with a potentially habitable candidate world. The host star is significantly smaller than the previous star at about a quarter the radius and mass of the Sun. There are only two planets in this system, but both are quite unique. The first, EPIC 210736056.02, is the smallest at just 0.88 RE, not that much smaller than Venus. It is also likely similar to Venus, as its orbit of 9.944 days places it at 0.057162 AU, within the "Venus Zone" of the system. The equilibrium temperature of 333oK suggests a stellar flux around twice that of Earth, which would evaporate any water and lead to a terrible runaway greenhouse effect. The second planet, EPIC 210736056.01, is significantly more promising. At 1.32 RE, it's exactly 50% larger than C02, and orbits significantly further out at 0.11675 AU with a year of 29.024 days. This puts C01 within the outer part of the habitable zone and give it an equilibrium temperature of 233oK. This is just about the same as Proxima b and TRAPPIST-1e, indicating a stellar flux 2/3rds that of Earth. The calculated ESI value for this planet is 0.83 - not as good as EPIC 210897587.03, but still VERY good and indicates a potentially life-friendly planet.

 

That's all the significant findings for this week. Vidar87 found some other candidate planets, which you can see HERE. While all interesting, they're quite terrible to live on, so I decided not to cover them. Expect some more potential new candidates from known Kepler systems in the next Daily Roundup.

Wow 12 planets? What a great roundup! 

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EricL

EricL

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

THE DAILY ROUNDUP

These past two weeks have seen some major development in the knowledge of several exoplanet systems, as well as the discoveries of many more interesting worlds.

EPIC 210693462: I've been teasing a HUGE reveal about this system for a while now. Originally, it was a red dwarf less than a third the size of our Sun with a likely rocky planet nicknamed Natalie orbiting within the habitable zone every 31 days. After the initial discovery, Ian Crossfield said that the Exoplanet Explorers team would use the Keck Telescopes to take a closer look at the system in late summer to figure out how large the host is. This would, as a result, enable us to determine how large Natalie is and whether it is promising or not for life. On September 10th, 2017, the data and images gathered were uploaded to ExoFOP by David Ciardi. This is the image of EPIC 210693462:

210693462I-dc20170820K.fits.jpg

Whoops, I forgot to say "stars", plural. It turns out that EPIC 210693462 is something none of us on Exoplanet Explorers ever expected: a binary system. Libmar96 was the first to stumble across the results, and he was initially quite pessimistic about the results. The problem with transiting planets in binary systems is that the planets are ALWAYS somewhat larger than initially expected, as the planet would need to block more light from the single star to produce the dip seen in the light curve. Libmar suggested that Natalie would not be a rocky planet, but instead a gas dwarf. However, that does not appear to be the case. The EPIC 210693462 binary is nearly equal in size, which would mean that any planet orbiting the primary would be 30-50% larger than initially determined with single-star data. This means that, taking into account the original radius value of 1.278 RE, Natalie would be between 1.66 and 1.92 RE if it orbits the primary star, a size range most probable if the planet has a significant amount of water in its composition. Instead of being a terrestrial Earth-like world or a hostile Mini-Neptune, Natalie could instead be like the Star Wars planet Mon Calamari - a life-friendly ocean planet with twin suns. But what if the stars aren't red dwarfs? That actually seems unlikely. Look at the scale in arcseconds. Both stars are incredibly tiny, and they're only separated by 0.84 arsec. This, along with the spectroscopic data gathered by multiple observations, suggests that the two stars are most likely M-dwarfs. They may even be much smaller than the original 0.312 RSun size estimate given by Huber et al.

KEPLER-90: I also teased new findings about this system over the last week or two. If you're not familiar, Kepler-90 is the first (and only) 7-planet system found by the Kepler mission. It is like a more compact version of our Solar System - inner rocky planets, mid-range Mini Neptunes, outer Gas Giants - orbiting a star around 20% larger in radius and mass than our Sun. Using a new beta version of LcViewer and an improved BLS Search, shutcheon did an analysis on the system...and found THREE likely new inner planets! These new worlds are 0.80, 1.24, and 1.20 times the size of Earth and orbit every 3.0351, 14.4481, and 18.7855 days. All of them are perfectly in resonance with each other and the other two inner planets, Kepler-90b and Kepler-90c. Things eventually got even MORE complicated, as I managed to find TEN MORE SIGNALS within the group of inner worlds. Most of them are either randomly aligned stellar noise or artifacts from the other planets. However, a few signals hold promise. The most likely of the bunch are, as of now, designated KOI-351.13 and KOI-351.14. Candidate 13 is around 0.77 RE and takes 6.760 days to orbit Kepler-90. The other potential planet, Candidate 14, is around the same size at 0.79 RE but takes 8.454 days to orbit the central star. If real, this would mean that Kepler-90 has a total of TWELVE planets, even higher than our Solar System and the HD 10180 system! Because all 5 of the new candidates are so small, it's probably going to take a while before any of them get confirmed. It's also possible that some of these are false positives, while some of the other possibilities I've found are real planets. Very confusing.

KEPLER-20: Another confirmed Kepler system joins today's Daily Roundup. It has 6 confirmed planets, 5 transiting and one that is not. Two of the planets were the first Earth-sized planets found by Kepler, while 20b is one of the very few "Mega-Earths". Shutcheon managed to find a potential seventh planet, this time a tiny 0.26 RE object orbiting every 0.403727 days, Think of it as The Moon from Hell. However, closer analysis revealed that this object may have a longer orbital period of about 1.232102 days, putting it in a 3:1 resonance with Kepler-20b.

EPIC 210897587: A new find by Vidar87. Using newly processed K2 Campaign 13 data and an upgraded BLS Search, he found THREE likely rocky Super-Earths orbiting a small red dwarf star. The third one is potentially habitable!

  • C02: 1.03 RE, 6.343 days, 0.049493 AU, 473oK, 34.7 sigma.
  • C01: 1.44 RE, 13.855 days, 0.08332 AU, 365oK, 39.7 sigma.
  • C03: 1.16 RE, 40.661 days, 0.17079 AU, 255oK, 28.4 sigma.

This system is absolutely amazing. All of the three planets are most likely real, and would've been confirmed by now if scientists had access to this data earlier. Plus, that final planet is one of the best candidates for potential habitability ever found by Exoplanet Explorers users. Its longer orbital period puts it smack within the habitable zone, giving it just about the same amount of stellar flux Earth receives. It is only a tad larger than Earth, and may be freely rotating if its orbit is eccentric enough. Based on its radius and estimated stellar flux of ~1.00, EPIC 210897587.03 has an Earth Similarity Index value of 0.95!!!

EPIC 210736056: Another multi-planet system found by Vidar87 with a potentially habitable candidate world. The host star is significantly smaller than the previous star at about a quarter the radius and mass of the Sun. There are only two planets in this system, but both are quite unique. The first, EPIC 210736056.02, is the smallest at just 0.88 RE, not that much smaller than Venus. It is also likely similar to Venus, as its orbit of 9.944 days places it at 0.057162 AU, within the "Venus Zone" of the system. The equilibrium temperature of 333oK suggests a stellar flux around twice that of Earth, which would evaporate any water and lead to a terrible runaway greenhouse effect. The second planet, EPIC 210736056.01, is significantly more promising. At 1.32 RE, it's exactly 50% larger than C02, and orbits significantly further out at 0.11675 AU with a year of 29.024 days. This puts C01 within the outer part of the habitable zone and give it an equilibrium temperature of 233oK. This is just about the same as Proxima b and TRAPPIST-1e, indicating a stellar flux 2/3rds that of Earth. The calculated ESI value for this planet is 0.83 - not as good as EPIC 210897587.03, but still VERY good and indicates a potentially life-friendly planet.

Wow, these are some very good findings! :o

Also, what telescopes do you have access to over on Exoplanet Explorers?

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ProtoJeb21

ProtoJeb21

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10 minutes ago, EricL said:

Wow, these are some very good findings! :o

Also, what telescopes do you have access to over on Exoplanet Explorers?

There are no telescopes. All our discoveries are done by going through and/or analyzing Kepler and K2 data. 

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