Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2010-08-10
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Accepted for ApJ Letters, 7 pages, 3 Figures, 2 Tables
Scientific paper
We report recent ground-based photometry of the transiting super-Earth exoplanet GJ1214b at several wavelengths, including the infrared near 1.25 microns (J-band). We observed a J-band transit with the FLAMINGOS infrared imager and the 2.1-meter telescope on Kitt Peak, and we observed several optical transits using a 0.5-meter telescope on Kitt Peak and the 0.36-meter Universidad de Monterrey Observatory telescope. Our high-precision J-band observations exploit the brightness of the M-dwarf host star at this infrared wavelength as compared to the optical, as well as being significantly less affected by stellar activity and limb darkening. We fit the J-band transit to obtain an independent determination of the planetary and stellar radii. Our radius for the planet (2.61^+0.30_-0.11 Earth radii) is in excellent agreement with the discovery value reported by Charbonneau et al. based on optical data. We demonstrate that the planetary radius is insensitive to degeneracies in the fitting process. We use all of our observations to improve the transit ephemeris, finding P=1.5804043 +/- 0.0000005 days, and T0=2454964.94390 +/- 0.00006 BJD.
Bays Kevin
Deming Drake
Haase Flynn
Jackson Brian
Jennings Donald E.
No associations
LandOfFree
Recent Transits of the Super-Earth Exoplanet GJ 1214b does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Recent Transits of the Super-Earth Exoplanet GJ 1214b, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Recent Transits of the Super-Earth Exoplanet GJ 1214b will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-584312