We report the detection of a transiting planet around π Mensae (HD 39091), using data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The solar-type host star is unusually bright (V=5.7) and was already known to host a Jovian planet on a highly eccentric, 5.7-year orbit. The newly discovered planet has a size of 2.04±0.05R⊕ and an orbital period of 6.27 days. Radial-velocity data from the HARPS and AAT/UCLES archives also displays a 6.27-day periodicity, confirming the existence of the planet and leading to a mass determination of 4.82±0.85M⊕. The star's proximity and brightness will facilitate further investigations, such as atmospheric spectroscopy, asteroseismology, the Rossiter--McLaughlin effect, astrometry, and direct imaging.
@article{arxiv.1809.05967,
title = {TESS Discovery of a Transiting Super-Earth in the $\pi$ Mensae System},
author = {Chelsea X. Huang and Jennifer Burt and Andrew Vanderburg and Maximilian N. Günther and Avi Shporer and Jason A. Dittmann and Joshua N. Winn and Rob Wittenmyer and Lizhou Sha and Stephen R. Kane and George R. Ricker and Roland K. Vanderspek and David W. Latham and Sara Seager and Jon M. Jenkins and Douglas A. Caldwell and Karen A. Collins and Natalia Guerrero and Jeffrey C. Smith and Samuel N. Quinn and Stéphane Udry and Francesco Pepe and François Bouchy and Damien Ségransan and Christophe Lovis and David Ehrenreich and Maxime Marmier and Michel Mayor and Bill Wohler and Kari Haworth and Edward H. Morgan and Michael Fausnaugh and David R. Ciardi and Jessie Christiansen and David Charbonneau and Diana Dragomir and Drake Deming and Ana Glidden and Alan M. Levine and P. R. McCullough and Liang Yu and Norio Narita and Tam Nguyen and Tim Morton and Joshua Pepper and András Pál and Joseph E. Rodriguez and the TESS team},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1809.05967},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication ApJ Letters. This letter makes use of the TESS Alert data, which is currently in a beta test phase. The discovery light curve is included in a table inside the arxiv submission