Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2010-10-31
Science, 2010, 330, 653
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
First published in Science on Oct 29, 2010 (vol. 330, pp. 653-655). Includes supporting online material. http://www.sciencem
Scientific paper
10.1126/science.1194854
The questions of how planets form and how common Earth-like planets are can be addressed by measuring the distribution of exoplanet masses and orbital periods. We report the occurrence rate of close-in planets (with orbital periods less than 50 days) based on precise Doppler measurements of 166 Sun-like stars. We measured increasing planet occurrence with decreasing planet mass (M). Extrapolation of a power law mass distribution fitted to our measurements, df/dlogM = 0.39M^-0.48, predicts that 23% of stars harbor a close-in Earth-mass planet (ranging from 0.5 to 2.0 Earth masses). Theoretical models of planet formation predict a deficit of planets in the domain from 5 to 30 Earth masses and with orbital periods less than 50 days. This region of parameter space is in fact well populated, implying that such models need substantial revision.
Anderson Jeffrey
Fischer Debra Ann
Howard Andrew W.
Ida Shigeru
Isaacson Howard
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