A ~ 7.5 Earth-Mass Planet Orbiting the Nearby Star, GJ 876

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dc.creatorRivera, E. J.
dc.creatorLissauer, J. J.
dc.creatorButler, R. P.
dc.creatorMarcy, G. W.
dc.creatorVogt, S. S.
dc.creatorFischer, D. A.
dc.creatorBrown, T. M.
dc.creatorLaughlin, G.
dc.creatorHenry, G. W.
dc.date2005-10-18
dc.date2005-10-18
dc.date.accessioned2026-07-07T10:43:22Z
dc.date.available2026-07-07T10:43:22Z
dc.descriptionHigh precision, high cadence radial velocity monitoring over the past 8 years at the W. M. Keck Observatory reveals evidence for a third planet orbiting the nearby (4.69 pc) dM4 star GJ 876. The residuals of three-body Newtonian fits, which include GJ 876 and Jupiter mass companions b and c, show significant power at a periodicity of 1.9379 days. Self-consistently fitting the radial velocity data with a model that includes an additional body with this period significantly improves the quality of the fit. These four-body (three-planet) Newtonian fits find that the minimum mass of companion ``d'' is m sin i = 5.89 +- 0.54 Earth masses and that its orbital period is 1.93776 (+- 7x10^-5) days. Assuming coplanar orbits, an inclination of the GJ 876 planetary system to the plane of the sky of ~ 50 degrees gives the best fit. This inclination yields a mass for companion d of m = 7.53 +- 0.70 Earth masses, making it by far the lowest mass companion yet found around a main sequence star other than our Sun. Precise photometric observations at Fairborn Observatory confirm low-level brightness variability in GJ 876 and provide the first explicit determination of the star's 96.7-day rotation period. Even higher precision short-term photometric measurements obtained at Las Campanas imply that planet d does not transit GJ 876.
dc.description49 pages, 16 figures, 1 electronic table available upon request
dc.identifierhttps://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0510508
dc.identifierhttp://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0510508
dc.identifierAstrophys.J.634:625-640,2005
dc.identifierdoi:10.1086/491669
dc.identifier.urihttp://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/182215
dc.subjectAstrophysics
dc.titleA ~ 7.5 Earth-Mass Planet Orbiting the Nearby Star, GJ 876
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