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Posted by baalke on May 31, 2007, 2:29 pm
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http://www.lowell.edu/press_room/releases/recent_releases/TrES3.html
For Immediate Release
May 31, 2007
contacts at end
Editors: view and download the computer generated simulations
<http://www.lowell.edu/press_room/TrES-3_images.html> to accompany
this release.
Massive Transiting Planet with 31-hour Year Found Around Distant Star
Lowell Observatory
Flagstaff, Ariz.- 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 Hillenbrand of the California Institute
of
Technology. The paper is available online at:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0705.2004.
This research is funded by NASA through the Origins of Solar Systems
Program.
end
contact:
Steele Wotkyns
Public Relations Manager
(928) 233-3232
steele@lowell.edu
and
Georgi Mandushev
Astronomer
(928) 233-3252
gmand@lowell.edu
About Lowell Observatory
Lowell Observatory is a private, non-profit research institution
founded
in 1894 by Percival Lowell. The Observatory has been the site of many
important findings including the discovery of the large recessional
velocities (redshift) of galaxies by Vesto Slipher in 1912-1914 (a
result that led ultimately to the realization the universe is
expanding), and the discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930.
Today,
Lowell's 19 astronomers use ground-based telescopes around the world,
telescopes in space, and NASA planetary spacecraft to conduct research
in diverse areas of astronomy and planetary science. The Observatory
welcomes 70,000 visitors each year to its Mars Hill campus in
Flagstaff,
Arizona for a variety of tours, telescope viewing, and special
programs.
Lowell Observatory currently has four research telescopes at its
Anderson Mesa dark sky site east of Flagstaff, and is building a 4-
meter
class research telescope, the Discovery Channel Telescope, in
partnership with Discovery Communications, Inc.
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