The HARPS-N Rocky Planet Search: I. HD219134 b: a transiting rocky planet in a multi-planet system at 6.5 pc from the Sun

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  • F. Motalebi
  • S. Udry
  • M. Gillon
  • C. Lovis
  • D. Ségransan
  • B. O. Demory
  • L. Malavolta
  • C. D. Dressing
  • D. Sasselov
  • K. Rice
  • D. Charbonneau
  • A. Collier Cameron
  • D. Latham
  • E. Molinari
  • F. Pepe
  • L. Affer
  • A. S. Bonomo
  • R. Cosentino
  • X. Dumusque
  • P. Figueira
  • A. F M Fiorenzano
  • S. Gettel
  • A. Harutyunyan
  • R. D. Haywood
  • J. Johnson
  • E. Lopez
  • M. Lopez-Morales
  • M. Mayor
  • G. Micela
  • A. Mortier
  • V. Nascimbeni
  • D. Philips
  • G. Piotto
  • D. Pollacco
  • D. Queloz
  • A. Sozzetti
  • A. Vanderburg
  • C. A. Watson

We know now from radial velocity surveys and transit space missions that planets only a few times more massive than our Earth are frequent around solar-type stars. Fundamental questions about their formation history, physical properties, internal structure, and atmosphere composition are, however, still to be solved. We present here the detection of a system of four low-mass planets around the bright (V = 5.5) and close-by (6.5 pc) star HD 219134. This is the first result of the Rocky Planet Search programme with HARPS-N on the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo in La Palma. The inner planet orbits the star in 3.0935 ± 0.0003 days, on a quasi-circular orbit with a semi-major axis of 0.0382 ± 0.0003 AU. Spitzer observations allowed us to detect the transit of the planet in front of the star making HD 219134 b the nearest known transiting planet to date. From the amplitude of the radial velocity variation (2.25 ± 0.22 ms-1) and observed depth of the transit (359 ± 38 ppm), the planet mass and radius are estimated to be 4.36 ± 0.44 M and 1.606 ± 0.086 R, leading to a mean density of 5.76 ± 1.09 g cm-3, suggesting a rocky composition. One additional planet with minimum-mass of 2.78 ± 0.65 M moves on a close-in, quasi-circular orbit with a period of 6.767 ± 0.004 days. The third planet in the system has a period of 46.66 ± 0.08 days and a minimum-mass of 8.94 ± 1.13 M, at 0.233 ± 0.002 AU from the star. Its eccentricity is 0.46 ± 0.11. The period of this planet is close to the rotational period of the star estimated from variations of activity indicators (42.3 ± 0.1 days). The planetary origin of the signal is, however, thepreferred solution as no indication of variation at the corresponding frequency is observed for activity-sensitive parameters. Finally, a fourth additional longer-period planet of mass of 71 M orbits the star in 1842 days, on an eccentric orbit (e = 0.34 ± 0.17) at a distance of 2.56 AU.

Original languageEnglish
Article numberA72
JournalAstronomy & Astrophysics
Volume584
Number of pages12
ISSN0004-6361
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015

    Research areas

  • Binaries: eclipsing, Instrumentation: spectrographs, Stars: individual: HD 219134, Techniques: photometric, Techniques: radial velocities

ID: 154795999