English

TOI-880 is an Aligned, Coplanar, Multi-planet System

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics 2025-07-23 v1

Abstract

Although many cases of stellar spin-orbit misalignment are known, it is usually unclear whether a single planet's orbit was tilted or if the entire protoplanetary disk was misaligned. Measuring stellar obliquities in multi-transiting planetary systems helps to distinguish these possibilities. Here, we present a measurement of the sky-projected spin-orbit angle for TOI-880 c (TOI-880.01), a member of a system of three transiting planets, using the Keck Planet Finder (KPF). We found that the host star is a K-type star (Teff=5050±100T_{\rm eff}=5050 \pm 100 K). Planet b (TOI-880.02) has a radius of 2.19±0.11R2.19\pm0.11\mathrm{R_{\oplus}} and an orbital period of 2.62.6 days; planet c (TOI-880.01) is a Neptune-sized planet with 4.95±0.20R4.95\pm0.20\mathrm{R_{\oplus}} on a 6.46.4-day orbit; and planet d (TOI-880.03) has a radius of 3.400.21+0.22R3.40_{-0.21}^{+0.22}\mathrm{R_{\oplus}} and a period of 14.314.3 days. By modeling the Rossiter-McLaughlin (RM) effect, we found the sky-projected obliquity to be λc=7.47.2+6.8|\lambda_c| = 7.4_{-7.2}^{+6.8}^{\circ}, consistent with a prograde, well-aligned orbit. The lack of detectable rotational modulation of the flux of the host star and a low vsini\rm v\sin{i_\star} (1.6~km/s) imply slow rotation and correspondingly slow nodal precession of the planetary orbits and the expectation that the system will remain in this coplanar configuration. TOI-880 joins a growing sample of well-aligned, coplanar, multi-transiting systems. Additionally, TOI-880 c is a promising target for JWST follow-up, with a transmission spectroscopy metric (TSM) of 170\sim 170. We could not detect clear signs of atmospheric erosion in the Hα\alpha line from TOI-880 c, as photoevaporation might have diminished for this mature planet.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2507.16194,
  title  = {TOI-880 is an Aligned, Coplanar, Multi-planet System},
  author = {Elina Y. Zhang and Huan-Yu Teng and Fei Dai and Andrew W. Howard and Samuel P. Halverson and Howard Isaacson and Ryan A. Rubenzahl and Xian-Yu Wang and Songhu Wang and Benjamin J. Fulton and Louise D. Nielsen and Jack Lubin and Steven Giacalone and Luke B. Handley and Erik A. Petigura and Emma V. Turtelboom and Alex S. Polanski and Steve R. Gibson and Kodi Rider and Arpita Roy and Ashley Baker and Jerry Edelstein and Christopher L. Smith and Josh Walawender and Joshua N. Winn},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.16194},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T04:12:38.659Z