Improved precision on the radius of the nearby super-Earth 55 Cnc e
Open accessAbstract
We report on new transit photometry for the super-Earth 55 Cnc e obtained with Warm Spitzer/IRAC at 4.5 μm. An individual analysis of these new data leads to a planet radius of R⊕, which agrees well with the values previously derived from the MOST and Spitzer transit discovery data. A global analysis of both Spitzer transit time-series improves the precision on the radius of the planet at 4.5 μm to 2.20 ± 0.12 R⊕. We also performed an independent analysis of the MOST data, paying particular attention to the influence of the systematic effects of instrumental origin on the derived parameters and errors by including them in a global model instead of performing a preliminary detrending-filtering processing. We deduce an optical planet radius of 2.04 ± 0.15 R⊕ from this reanalysis of MOST data, which is consistent with the previous MOST result and with our Spitzer infrared radius. Assuming the achromaticity of the transit depth, we performed a global analysis combining Spitzer and MOST data that results in a planet radius of 2.17 ± 0.10 R⊕ (13 820 ± 620 km). These results point to 55 Cnc e having a gaseous envelope overlying a rocky nucleus, in agreement with previous works. A plausible composition for the envelope is water which would be in super-critical form given the equilibrium temperature of the planet.
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There are nine super-Earths with good determinations of both their radius and mass: GJ 1214 b, 55 Cnc e, Kepler-36b, HD 97658 b, CoRoT-7b, HIP 116454 b, Kepler-78b, and Kepler-10b and 10c.
“There are nine super-Earths with good determinations of both their radius and mass: GJ 1214 b (Charbonneau et al., 2009), 55 Cnc e (Gillon et al., 2012; Nelson et al., 2014), Kepler-36b (Carter et al., 2012), HD 97658 b (Dragomir et al., 2013), CoRoT-7b (Barros et al., 2014; Haywood et al., 2014), HIP 116454 b (Vanderburg et al., 2015), Kepler-78b (Howard et al., 2013; Pepe et al., 2013), and Ke”
From The Astrobiology Primer v2.0 (2016) · cites this paper as Gillon et al., 2012
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UNDERSTANDING THE MASS-RADIUS RELATION FOR SUB-NEPTUNES: RADIUS AS A PROXY FOR COMPOSITION
Lopez, E. D., & Fortney, J. J. (2014) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.1088/0004-637x/792/1/1 · Cited by 722 · see citing works
Domagal-Goldman, S. D., Wright, K. E., Domagal-Goldman, S. D., Wright, K. E., Adamala, K., Arina de la Rubia, L., Bond, J., Dartnell, L. R., Goldman, A. D., Lynch, K., et al. (2016) · Astrobiology · doi:10.1089/ast.2015.1460 · Cited by 136 · see citing works
“There are nine super-Earths with good determinations of both their radius and mass: GJ 1214 b (Charbonneau et al., 2009), 55 Cnc e (Gillon et al., 2012; Nelson et al., 2014), Kepler-36b (Carter et al., 2012), HD 97658 b (Dragomir et al., 2013), CoRoT7b (Barros et al., 2014; Haywood et al., 2014),…”
- Authors
- Gillon, M., Demory, B.-O., Benneke, B., Valencia, D., Deming, D., Seager, S., Lovis, C., Mayor, M., Pepe, F., Queloz, D., Ségransan, D., & Udry, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Liège (BE)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- University of Maryland, College Park (US)
- University of Geneva (CH)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Astronomy & Astrophysics
- Publisher
- EDP Sciences
- Published
- 2012-02-22
- Volume
- 539
- Pages
- A28
- ISSN
- 0004-6361 (ISSN-L)
- 1432-0746
- OpenAlex
- W2153907585
- Cited by
- 107
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 20 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 14
- FWCI
- 9.80
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Astronomy and Astrophysics (publishedVersion)
- Archive ouverte UNIGE (University of Geneva) (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (acceptedVersion)
- Springer Link (Chiba Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Bern Open Repository and Information System (University of Bern) (submittedVersion)
- DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- ORBi (University of Liège) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Archive ouverte UNIGE (University of Geneva) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Funders
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- California Institute of Technology
- Fonds De La Recherche Scientifique - FNRS
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Instrumentation › Astronomy and Astrophysical Research
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Astro and Planetary Science
- Keywords
- 55 Cnc e, super-Earths, planetary radius, transit photometry, MOST satellite, Spitzer IRAC, systematic effects, planetary composition, gaseous envelope, exoplanet characterization
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