VLT snaps an exotic exoplanet “first”

Eso_potw1624a_1024

eso_potw1624a June 13th, 2016

Credit: ESO/Schmidt et al.

Astronomers hunt for planets orbiting other stars (exoplanets) using a variety of methods. One successful method is direct imaging; this is particularly effective for planets on wide orbits around young stars, because the light from the planet is not overwhelmed by light from the host star and is thus easier to spot. This image demonstrates this technique. It shows a T-Tauri star named CVSO 30, located approximately 1200 light-years away from Earth in the 25 Orionis group (slightly northwest of Orion’s famous Belt). In 2012, astronomers found that CVSO 30 hosted one exoplanet (CVSO 30b) using a detection method known as transit photometry, where the light from a star observably dips as a planet travels in front of it. Now, astronomers have gone back to look at the system using a number of telescopes. The study combines observations obtained with the ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, and the Calar Alto Observatory facilities in Spain. Using the data astronomers have imaged what is likely to be a second planet! To produce the image, astronomers exploited the astrometry provided by VLT’s NACO and SINFONI instruments. This new exoplanet, named CVSO 30c, is the small dot to the upper left of the frame (the large blob is the star itself). While the previously-detected planet, CVSO 30b, orbits very close to the star, whirling around CVSO 30 in just under 11 hours at an orbital distance of 0.008 au, CVSO 30c orbits significantly further out, at a distance of 660 au, taking a staggering 27 000 years to complete a single orbit. (For reference, the planet Mercury orbits the Sun at an average distance of 0.39 au, while Neptune sits at just over 30 au.) If it is confirmed that CVSO 30c orbits CVSO 30, this would be the first star system to host both a close-in exoplanet detected by the transit method and a far-out exoplanet detected by direct imaging. Astronomers are still exploring how such an exotic system came to form in such a short timeframe, as the star is only 2.5 million years old; it is possible that the two planets interacted at some point in the past, scattering off one another and settling in their current extreme orbits. Link: Research paper by Schmidt et al.

Provider: European Southern Observatory

Image Source: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1624a/

Curator: European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
CVSO 30c
Subject - Milky Way
Planet
Eso_potw1624a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 5h 25m 7.5s
DEC = 1° 34’ 24.7”
Orientation
North is up
Field of View
0.2 x 0.2 arcminutes
Constellation
Orion

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red VLT (None) Infrared (KS) -
Green VLT (None) Infrared (H) -
Blue VLT (None) Infrared (J) -
Blue VLT (None) Infrared (J) -
Eso_potw1624a_1280
×
ID
potw1624a
Subject Category
B.1  
Subject Name
CVSO 30c
Credits
ESO/Schmidt et al.
Release Date
2016-06-13T06:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1624a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Research paper
Facility
Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope
Instrument
None, None, None, None
Color Assignment
Red, Green, Blue, Blue
Band
Infrared, Infrared, Infrared, Infrared
Bandpass
KS, H, J, J
Central Wavelength
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
81.281347786, 1.57351735066
Reference Dimension
692.0, 706.0
Reference Pixel
346.0, 353.0
Scale
-3.65766552111e-06, 3.65766552111e-06
Rotation
-0
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
European Southern Observatory
URL
http://www.eso.org
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
European Southern Observatory
Publisher ID
eso
Resource ID
potw1624a
Metadata Date
2016-04-19T17:42:07+02:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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