HST Confirmation of a Candidate Earth Analogue from the Kepler Primary Mission
Investigators
PI: Dr. Andrew Vanderburg University of Texas at Austin
CoI: Dr. Laura Kreidberg Harvard University
CoI: Chris Shallue Google AI
CoI: David W Latham Smithsonian Institution Astrophysical Observatory
Abstract
http://www.stsci.edu/hst/phase2-public/15685.pdf
http://www.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/get-proposal-info?id=15685&observatory=HST
http://archive.stsci.edu/proposal_search.php?mission=hst&id=15685
The reported visit target in the proposal is 2MASS-J19432996+5059289. In the Kepler target catalog, this star is called KIC 12266812. HST has completed the observation two weeks ago and the analysis is underway.
Gaia DR2 parallax gives a distance of 1010~1030 light years and stellar radius (0.978 Rs) and effective temperature (5908 K) literally identical to our Sun.
The three transits and periods detected by Kepler seem identifiable and robust to my eyes. Based on HST's visit time and period reported in the proposal, the transits must have taken place during 485-487, 851-852, and 1216-1217 (BJD-2,454,833). The light curves below are obtained from Time Series Viewer. This is my own analysis on KIC 12266812, yielding a transit depth at around ~120 ppm and duration around 10 hours.
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1pG8fzxWzAJ0MU3NMSA7T55Mbh2BurIIL
If confirmed, this planet will be the most similar planet to Earth, literally an Earth twin with identical size, orbital period, orbital distance, insolation, host star, and maybe even biosphere, although the result from HST observation takes about three years to publish.