English

A HARPS view on K2-3

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics 2016-08-07 v1

Abstract

K2 space observations recently found that three super-Earths transit the nearby M dwarf K2-3. The apparent brightness and the small physical radius of their host star rank these planets amongst the most favourable for follow-up characterisations. The outer planet orbits close to the inner edge of the habitable zone and might become one of the first exoplanets searched for biomarkers using transmission spectroscopy. We used the HARPS velocimeter to measure the mass of the planets. The mass of planet bb is 8.4±2.18.4\pm2.1 M_\oplus, while our determination of those planets cc and dd are affected by the stellar activity. With a density of 4.320.76+2.04.32^{+2.0}_{-0.76} g  cm3\mathrm{g\;cm^{-3}}, planet bb is probably mostly rocky, but it could contain up to 50% water.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1509.02917,
  title  = {A HARPS view on K2-3},
  author = {J. M. Almenara and N. Astudillo-Defru and X. Bonfils and T. Forveille and A. Santerne and S. Albrecht and S. C. C. Barros and F. Bouchy and X. Delfosse and O. Demangeon and R. F. Díaz and G. Hébrard and M. Mayor and V. Neves and P. Rojo and N. C. Santos and A. Wünsche},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1509.02917},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

6 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in A&A

R2 v1 2026-06-22T10:53:09.985Z