Kepler-47: A Transiting Circumbinary Multiplanet System

• Main Authors: Orosz, Jerome A. (Author), Welsh, William F. (Author), Carter, Joshua Adam (Author), Fabrycky, Daniel C. (Author), Cochran, William D. (Author), Endl, Michael (Author), Ford, Eric B. (Author), Haghighipour, Nader (Author), MacQueen, Phillip J. (Author), Mazeh, Tsevi (Author), Sanchis Ojeda, Roberto (Contributor), Short, Donald R. (Author), Torres, Guillermo (Author), Agol, Eric (Author), Buchhave, Lars A. (Author), Doyle, Laurance R. (Author), Isaacson, Howard (Author), Lissauer, Jack J. (Author), Marcy, Geoffrey W. (Author), Shporer, Avi (Author), Windmiller, Gur (Author), Barclay, Thomas (Author), Boss, Alan P. (Author), Clarke, Bruce D. (Author), Fortney, Jonathan J. (Author), Geary, John C. (Author), Holman, Matthew J. (Author), Huber, Daniel (Author), Jenkins, Jon M. (Author), Kinemuchi, Karen (Author), Kruse, Ethan (Author), Ragozzine, Darin (Author), Sasselov, Dimitar (Author), Still, Martin (Author), Tenenbaum, Peter (Author), Uddin, Kamal (Author), Winn, Joshua Nathan (Contributor), Koch, David (Author), Borucki, William J. (Author)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics (Contributor), MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 2014-09-04T15:52:36Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

We report the detection of Kepler-47, a system consisting of two planets orbiting around an eclipsing pair of stars. The inner and outer planets have radii 3.0 and 4.6 times that of Earth, respectively. The binary star consists of a Sun-like star and a companion roughly one-third its size, orbiting each other every 7.45 days. With an orbital period of 49.5 days, 18 transits of the inner planet have been observed, allowing a detailed characterization of its orbit and those of the stars. The outer planet's orbital period is 303.2 days, and although the planet is not Earth-like, it resides within the classical "habitable zone," where liquid water could exist on an Earth-like planet. With its two known planets, Kepler-47 establishes that close binary stars can host complete planetary systems.
United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Kepler Participating Scientist Program via NASA grant NNX12AD23G)
National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF grant AST-1109928)
National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF grant AST-1007992)
United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Hubble Fellowship grant HF-51267.01-A)
United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Hubble Fellowship grant HF-51272.01-A)