Top panel: Phase-folded TOI-530 TESS photometry. The median posterior model is represented by the solid red line. Bottom panel: The residuals from the TESS data after subtraction of the best-fit transit models. Credit: Gan et al., 2021.
An international team of astronomers discovered a new, huge alien world using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. The new exoplanet, TOI-530b was only 17 percent smaller than Jupiter. This finding was reported in a paper that was published on October 8th on the arXiv preprint repository.
TESS is currently conducting a survey of approximately 200,000 stars close to the sun in order to search for transiting exoplanets. It has so far identified more than 4,500 candidates exoplanets (TESS objects of interest, or TOI), and 159 of them have been confirmed.
Tianjun Gan, an astronomer from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China confirmed another TOI that was being monitored by TESS. The transit signal was detected in the light curve of a M dwarf star, known as TOI530. Follow-up observations confirmed the planetary nature this signal.
We report the discovery by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite of TOI530b, a transiting planet around an M0.5V dwarf. ... We verify the planetary nature of the transit signals by combining ground-based multi-wavelength photometry, high resolution spectroscopy from SPIRou [SpectroPolarimtre InfraROUge] as well as high-angular-resolution imaging," the researchers wrote in the paper.
TOI-530b's radius is 0.83 Jupiter radii. Its mass is 0.4 Jupiter masses. This results in a density of 0.93 g/cm3. At a distance of 0.052AU, the planet orbits its parent star 6.39 days every. The equilibrium temperature for TOI-530b is 565 K. It lies 481.5 lightyears from Earth.
TOI-530, also known as TIC-387690507 is a M dwarf that is about half the mass and size of the sun. The star's metallicity is approximately 0.376. Its effective temperature is 3,659 K. It is therefore one of the most faint stars that can be viewed by ground-based spectroscopy.
The paper's authors concluded by noting that TOI-530b, due to its faintness, is not a good target for future atmospheric composition studies. However, astronomers could use it for other purposes.
The scientists explained that TOI-530b, the sixth transiting giant planet, is hosted by an M type star. It is expected to be infrequent, which makes it a valuable object for further studying the formation and migration history similar planets.
Gan's team suggests future observations of the TOI530 system in order to better understand its properties. Researchers suggest that the system be studied using high-precision radial velocity spectrumrographs on large telescopes such as the red-optical MAROONX or near infrared instruments such as InfraRed Doppler (IRD).
Tianjun Gan and al, TOI530b: TESS detected a giant planet transiting an m dwarf. arXiv.2110.04220v1 (astro-ph.EP], Tianjun Ga et al., TOI-530b : TESS detected a giant planet transiting an m dwarf. arXiv:2110.04220v1 [astro-ph.EP], arxiv.org/abs/2110.04220
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