Detection of a transit of the super-Earth 55 Cancri e with warm Spitzer

• Main Authors: Gillon, M. (Author), Deming, Drake (Author), Lovis, Christophe (Author), Cubillos, P. (Author), Harrington, Joseph (Author), Stevenson, K. B. (Author), Mayor, Michel (Author), Pepe, F. (Author), Queloz, D. (Author), Segransan, D. (Author), Udry, S. (Author), Demory, Brice-Olivier (Contributor), Valencia, Diana (Contributor), Seager, Sara (Contributor), Benneke, Bjoern (Contributor)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: EDP Sciences, 2014-04-11T15:50:46Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

We report on the detection of a transit of the super-Earth 55 Cnc e with warm Spitzer in IRAC's 4.5 μm band. Our MCMC analysis includes an extensive modeling of the systematic effects affecting warm Spitzer photometry, and yields a transit depth of 410 ± 63 ppm, which translates to a planetary radius of 2.08[+0.16 over -0.17]R[subscript ⊕] as measured in IRAC 4.5 μm channel. A planetary mass of 7.81[+0.58 over -0.53]M[subscript ⊕] is derived from an extensive set of radial-velocity data, yielding a mean planetary density of 4.78[+1.31 over -1.20] g cm[superscript -3]. Thanks to the brightness of its host star (V = 6, K = 4), 55 Cnc e is a unique target for the thorough characterization of a super-Earth orbiting around a solar-type star.
United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
National Science Foundation (U.S.)