Abstract
About 1 out of 200 Sun-like stars has a planet with an orbital period shorter than one day: an ultrashort-period planet1,2. All of the previously known ultrashort-period planets are either hot Jupiters, with sizes above 10 Earth radii (R⊕), or apparently rocky planets smaller than 2 R⊕. Such lack of planets of intermediate size (the ‘hot Neptune desert’) has been interpreted as the inability of low-mass planets to retain any hydrogen/helium (H/He) envelope in the face of strong stellar irradiation. Here we report the discovery of an ultrashort-period planet with a radius of 4.6 R⊕ and a mass of 29 M⊕, firmly in the hot Neptune desert. Data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite3 revealed transits of the bright Sun-like star LTT 9779 every 0.79 days. The planet’s mean density is similar to that of Neptune, and according to thermal evolution models, it has a H/He-rich envelope constituting 9.0−2.9+2.7% of the total mass. With an equilibrium temperature around 2,000 K, it is unclear how this ‘ultrahot Neptune’ managed to retain such an envelope. Follow-up observations of the planet’s atmosphere to better understand its origin and physical nature will be facilitated by the star’s brightness (Vmag = 9.8).
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1148-1157 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Nature Astronomy |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue number | 12 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2020 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Astronomy and Astrophysics
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An ultrahot Neptune in the Neptune desert. / Jenkins, James S.; Díaz, Matías R.; Kurtovic, Nicolás T.; Espinoza, Néstor; Vines, Jose I.; Rojas, Pablo A.Peña; Brahm, Rafael; Torres, Pascal; Cortés-Zuleta, Pía; Soto, Maritza G.; Lopez, Eric D.; King, George W.; Wheatley, Peter J.; Winn, Joshua N.; Ciardi, David R.; Ricker, George; Vanderspek, Roland; Latham, David W.; Seager, Sara; Jenkins, Jon M.; Beichman, Charles A.; Bieryla, Allyson; Burke, Christopher J.; Christiansen, Jessie L.; Henze, Christopher E.; Klaus, Todd C.; McCauliff, Sean; Mori, Mayuko; Narita, Norio; Nishiumi, Taku; Tamura, Motohide; de Leon, Jerome Pitogo; Quinn, Samuel N.; Villaseñor, Jesus Noel; Vezie, Michael; Lissauer, Jack J.; Collins, Karen A.; Collins, Kevin I.; Isopi, Giovanni; Mallia, Franco; Ercolino, Andrea; Petrovich, Cristobal; Jordán, Andrés; Acton, Jack S.; Armstrong, David J.; Bayliss, Daniel; Bouchy, François; Belardi, Claudia; Bryant, Edward M.; Burleigh, Matthew R.; Cabrera, Juan; Casewell, Sarah L.; Chaushev, Alexander; Cooke, Benjamin F.; Eigmüller, Philipp; Erikson, Anders; Foxell, Emma; Gänsicke, Boris T.; Gill, Samuel; Gillen, Edward; Günther, Maximilian N.; Goad, Michael R.; Hooton, Matthew J.; Jackman, James A.G.; Louden, Tom; McCormac, James; Moyano, Maximiliano; Nielsen, Louise D.; Pollacco, Don; Queloz, Didier; Rauer, Heike; Raynard, Liam; Smith, Alexis M.S.; Tilbrook, Rosanna H.; Titz-Weider, Ruth; Turner, Oliver; Udry, Stéphane; Walker, Simon R.; Watson, Christopher A.; West, Richard G.; Palle, Enric; Ziegler, Carl; Law, Nicholas; Mann, Andrew W.
In: Nature Astronomy, Vol. 4, No. 12, 12.2020, p. 1148-1157.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
TY - JOUR
T1 - An ultrahot Neptune in the Neptune desert
AU - Jenkins, James S.
AU - Díaz, Matías R.
AU - Kurtovic, Nicolás T.
AU - Espinoza, Néstor
AU - Vines, Jose I.
AU - Rojas, Pablo A.Peña
AU - Brahm, Rafael
AU - Torres, Pascal
AU - Cortés-Zuleta, Pía
AU - Soto, Maritza G.
AU - Lopez, Eric D.
AU - King, George W.
AU - Wheatley, Peter J.
AU - Winn, Joshua N.
AU - Ciardi, David R.
AU - Ricker, George
AU - Vanderspek, Roland
AU - Latham, David W.
AU - Seager, Sara
AU - Jenkins, Jon M.
AU - Beichman, Charles A.
AU - Bieryla, Allyson
AU - Burke, Christopher J.
AU - Christiansen, Jessie L.
AU - Henze, Christopher E.
AU - Klaus, Todd C.
AU - McCauliff, Sean
AU - Mori, Mayuko
AU - Narita, Norio
AU - Nishiumi, Taku
AU - Tamura, Motohide
AU - de Leon, Jerome Pitogo
AU - Quinn, Samuel N.
AU - Villaseñor, Jesus Noel
AU - Vezie, Michael
AU - Lissauer, Jack J.
AU - Collins, Karen A.
AU - Collins, Kevin I.
AU - Isopi, Giovanni
AU - Mallia, Franco
AU - Ercolino, Andrea
AU - Petrovich, Cristobal
AU - Jordán, Andrés
AU - Acton, Jack S.
AU - Armstrong, David J.
AU - Bayliss, Daniel
AU - Bouchy, François
AU - Belardi, Claudia
AU - Bryant, Edward M.
AU - Burleigh, Matthew R.
AU - Cabrera, Juan
AU - Casewell, Sarah L.
AU - Chaushev, Alexander
AU - Cooke, Benjamin F.
AU - Eigmüller, Philipp
AU - Erikson, Anders
AU - Foxell, Emma
AU - Gänsicke, Boris T.
AU - Gill, Samuel
AU - Gillen, Edward
AU - Günther, Maximilian N.
AU - Goad, Michael R.
AU - Hooton, Matthew J.
AU - Jackman, James A.G.
AU - Louden, Tom
AU - McCormac, James
AU - Moyano, Maximiliano
AU - Nielsen, Louise D.
AU - Pollacco, Don
AU - Queloz, Didier
AU - Rauer, Heike
AU - Raynard, Liam
AU - Smith, Alexis M.S.
AU - Tilbrook, Rosanna H.
AU - Titz-Weider, Ruth
AU - Turner, Oliver
AU - Udry, Stéphane
AU - Walker, Simon R.
AU - Watson, Christopher A.
AU - West, Richard G.
AU - Palle, Enric
AU - Ziegler, Carl
AU - Law, Nicholas
AU - Mann, Andrew W.
N1 - Funding Information: Funding for the TESS mission is provided by NASA’s Science Mission directorate. We acknowledge the use of public TESS alert data from pipelines at the TESS Science Office and at the TESS Science Processing Operations Center. This research has made use of the Exoplanet Follow-up Observation Program website, which is operated by the California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under the Exoplanet Exploration Program. Resources supporting this work were provided by the NASA High-End Computing (HEC) Program through the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division at Ames Research Center for the production of the SPOC data products. J.S.J. and N.T. acknowledge support by FONDECYT grants 1161218 and 1201371, and partial support from CONICYT project Basal AFB-170002. M.R.D. is supported by CONICYT-PFCHA/Doctorado Nacional-21140646/Chile and Proyecto Basal AFB-170002. J.I.V. acknowledges support of CONICYT-PFCHA/Doctorado Nacional-21191829. This work was made possible owing to ESO Projects 0102.C-0525 (principal investigator, Díaz) and 0102.C-0451 (principal investigator, Brahm). R.B. acknowledges support from FONDECYT Post-doctoral Fellowship Project 3180246. This work is partly supported by JSPS KAKENHI grant numbers JP18H01265 and JP18H05439, and JST PRESTO grant number JPMJPR1775. The IRSF project is a collaboration between Nagoya University and the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) supported by the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas (A) (numbers 10147207 and 10147214) and Optical and Near-Infrared Astronomy Inter-University Cooperation Program, from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan and the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa. We thank A. Fukui, N. Kusakabe, K. Morihana, T. Nagata, T. Nagayama and the staff of SAAO for their kind support for IRSF SIRIUS observations and analyses. C.P. acknowledges support from the Gruber Foundation Fellowship and Jeffrey L. Bishop Fellowship. This research includes data collected under the NGTS project at the ESO La Silla Paranal Observatory. NGTS is funded by a consortium of institutes consisting of the University of Warwick, the University of Leicester, Queen’s University Belfast, the University of Geneva, the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR; under the ‘Großinvestition GI-NGTS’), the University of Cambridge, together with the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC; project reference ST/M001962/1 and ST/S002642/1). P.J.W., D.B., B.T.G., S.G., T.L., D.P. and R.G.W. are supported by STFC consolidated grant ST/P000495/1. D.J.A. gratefully acknowledges support from the STFC via an Ernest Rutherford Fellowship (ST/R00384X/1). E.G. gratefully acknowledges support from the David and Claudia Harding Foundation in the form of a Winton Exoplanet Fellowship. M.J.H. acknowledges funding from the Northern Ireland Department for the Economy. M.T. is supported by JSPS KAKENHI (18H05442, 15H02063). A.J., R.B. and P.T. acknowledge support from FONDECYT project 1171208, and by the Ministry for the Economy, Development, and Tourism’s Programa Iniciativa Científica Milenio through grant IC 120009, awarded to the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics (MAS). P.E., A.C. and H.R. acknowledge the support of the DFG priority programme SPP 1992 ‘Exploring the Diversity of Extrasolar Planets’ (RA 714/13-1). We acknowledge the effort of A. Tokovinin in helping to perform the observations and reduction of the SOAR data. Publisher Copyright: © 2020, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2020/12
Y1 - 2020/12
N2 - About 1 out of 200 Sun-like stars has a planet with an orbital period shorter than one day: an ultrashort-period planet1,2. All of the previously known ultrashort-period planets are either hot Jupiters, with sizes above 10 Earth radii (R⊕), or apparently rocky planets smaller than 2 R⊕. Such lack of planets of intermediate size (the ‘hot Neptune desert’) has been interpreted as the inability of low-mass planets to retain any hydrogen/helium (H/He) envelope in the face of strong stellar irradiation. Here we report the discovery of an ultrashort-period planet with a radius of 4.6 R⊕ and a mass of 29 M⊕, firmly in the hot Neptune desert. Data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite3 revealed transits of the bright Sun-like star LTT 9779 every 0.79 days. The planet’s mean density is similar to that of Neptune, and according to thermal evolution models, it has a H/He-rich envelope constituting 9.0−2.9+2.7% of the total mass. With an equilibrium temperature around 2,000 K, it is unclear how this ‘ultrahot Neptune’ managed to retain such an envelope. Follow-up observations of the planet’s atmosphere to better understand its origin and physical nature will be facilitated by the star’s brightness (Vmag = 9.8).
AB - About 1 out of 200 Sun-like stars has a planet with an orbital period shorter than one day: an ultrashort-period planet1,2. All of the previously known ultrashort-period planets are either hot Jupiters, with sizes above 10 Earth radii (R⊕), or apparently rocky planets smaller than 2 R⊕. Such lack of planets of intermediate size (the ‘hot Neptune desert’) has been interpreted as the inability of low-mass planets to retain any hydrogen/helium (H/He) envelope in the face of strong stellar irradiation. Here we report the discovery of an ultrashort-period planet with a radius of 4.6 R⊕ and a mass of 29 M⊕, firmly in the hot Neptune desert. Data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite3 revealed transits of the bright Sun-like star LTT 9779 every 0.79 days. The planet’s mean density is similar to that of Neptune, and according to thermal evolution models, it has a H/He-rich envelope constituting 9.0−2.9+2.7% of the total mass. With an equilibrium temperature around 2,000 K, it is unclear how this ‘ultrahot Neptune’ managed to retain such an envelope. Follow-up observations of the planet’s atmosphere to better understand its origin and physical nature will be facilitated by the star’s brightness (Vmag = 9.8).
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85091611527&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85091611527&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41550-020-1142-z
DO - 10.1038/s41550-020-1142-z
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85091611527
VL - 4
SP - 1148
EP - 1157
JO - Nature Astronomy
JF - Nature Astronomy
SN - 2397-3366
IS - 12
ER -