Chris Sasaki with files from Stanford University / en Young, Jupiter-like planet discovered by international team including 老司机直播 astronomers /news/young-jupiter-planet-discovered-international-team-including-u-t-astronomers <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Young, Jupiter-like planet discovered by international team including 老司机直播 astronomers</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2015-08-13T11:29:22-04:00" title="Thursday, August 13, 2015 - 11:29" class="datetime">Thu, 08/13/2015 - 11:29</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item"> Danielle Futselaar &amp; Franck Marchis, SETI Institute)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/chris-sasaki" hreflang="en">Chris Sasaki</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/chris-sasaki-files-stanford-university" hreflang="en">Chris Sasaki with files from Stanford University</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Chris Sasaki with files from Stanford University</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/breaking-research" hreflang="en">Breaking Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/top-stories" hreflang="en">Top Stories</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/astronomy" hreflang="en">Astronomy</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research" hreflang="en">Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">Baby planet is twice as massive as Jupiter, with plenty of methane in its atmosphere, researchers say</div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>An international team of&nbsp;astronomers has discovered a&nbsp;first-of-its-kind 鈥測oung Jupiter鈥 exoplanet&nbsp;鈥 a&nbsp;finding that could help explain how our solar system formed.</p> <p>Astronomers from the <a href="http://www.dunlap.utoronto.ca/">Dunlap Institute for Astronomy &amp; Astrophysics at the University of Toronto</a> are part of the team that&nbsp;discovered the&nbsp;planet, which is known as&nbsp;51 Eri b.&nbsp;</p> <p>It&nbsp;is the first planet detected with a new exoplanet-hunting instrument called the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) and the discovery is making headlines around the world. (<a href="http://www.irishexaminer.com/examviral/science-world/scientists-have-found-a-jupiter-like-planet-in-a-solar-system-that-could-be-similar-to-ours-348041.html">Read the&nbsp;Irish Examiner story</a>.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/science/jupiter-like-planet-spotted-by-camera-featuring-canadian-built-parts/article25954597/">Read the Globe story</a>. <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/young-jupiter-like-planet-51-eridani-b-discovered-by-gemini-planet-imager-1.3174397">Read the CBC story</a>. <a href="http://mashable.com/2015/08/13/jupiter-exoplanet-discovery/">Read the Mashable </a>story. <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/51-eridani-b-astronomers-discover-young-planet-that-looks-like-jupiter-100-light-years-away-10454531.html">Read the Independent story</a>.)&nbsp;</p> <h3>鈥淪imply breathtaking to see all of this hard work pay off with this exciting discovery鈥</h3> <p>Unlike the Kepler space telescope which detects exoplanets indirectly, the ground-based GPI lets astronomers see and study these distant worlds directly by first correcting for the blurring of the star鈥檚 image caused by the atmosphere, then by blocking out the star鈥檚 light to reveal the much fainter planet. In addition, GPI is a spectrograph, capable of analyzing light by wavelength.</p> <p>The instrument was designed specifically for discovering and analyzing faint, young planets orbiting bright stars. 鈥淭his is exactly the kind of planet we envisioned discovering when we designed GPI鈥, said&nbsp;James Graham, professor at UC Berkeley and project scientist for GPI.&nbsp;</p> <p>Graham helped develop GPI while director of the Dunlap Institute. He and Stanford Physics professor (and 老司机直播 alumnus) <strong>Bruce Macintosh</strong> lead the GPI collaboration and are lead authors of the SCIENCE paper announcing the discovery. Co-authors of the paper include Dunlap Fellows <strong>Jeffrey Chilcote</strong> and <strong>J茅r么me Maire</strong>, as well as 老司机直播 PhD-candidate <strong>Max Millar-Blanchaer</strong>.</p> <p>鈥淲ith development spanning nearly a decade, GPI has required contributions from over a hundred extremely talented and devoted people,鈥 said&nbsp;Chilcote, who was part of the team that developed GPI鈥檚 spectrograph. 鈥淚t is simply breathtaking to see all of this hard work pay off with this exciting discovery.鈥</p> <p>51 Eri b orbits a relatively young, 20 million year old star named 51 Eridani; the star is 100 light-years from Earth. Of all the exoplanets discovered through direct-imaging, 51 Eri b is the faintest and, at twice the mass of Jupiter, also the lowest-mass. It orbits slightly farther from its parent star than Saturn does from the Sun.</p> <p>What鈥檚 more, 51 Eri b is the coolest of the exoplanets discovered through direct imaging. Its atmosphere is about 430掳C&nbsp;鈥&nbsp;much cooler than most other exoplanets. Combined with the age of the system, this is a clue that the distant planetary system may have formed through a process called core-accretion that can also lead to smaller, rocky planets like Earth.</p> <p>With its spectrograph, GPI also revealed a strong methane signal from 51 Eri b. Other exoplanets have only faint traces of methane, which makes this newly-discovered world much more like the methane-rich gas giants in our Solar System.</p> <p>All of these characteristics, the researchers say, point to a planet that is very much what models suggest Jupiter was like in its infancy.</p> <p>鈥淭his planet really could have formed the same way Jupiter did&nbsp;鈥&nbsp;this whole planetary system could be a lot like ours.鈥 Macintosh said.</p> <p>Maire, a key member of the team that developed GPI鈥檚 data pipeline, said: 鈥淭he discovery of this exoplanet, made possible by the development of high-contrast imaging techniques implemented in GPI, provides new insights into planet formation and evolution.<span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">鈥</span></p> <p>The Gemini Planet Imager is installed on the Gemini South Telescope in northern Chile and began operating in late 2013. 51 Eri b is the first exoplanet to be discovered as part of the GPI Exoplanet Survey which will target 600 stars over the next 3 years.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><iframe allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/135906229" webkitallowfullscreen width="500"></iframe></p> <p><a href="https://vimeo.com/135906229">Simulated fly-by of the 51 Eridani star and planet system</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user2466014">Franck Marchis</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/2015-08-13-jupiter-like-resized.jpg</div> </div> Thu, 13 Aug 2015 15:29:22 +0000 sgupta 7210 at