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Discovery of a Jupiter/Saturn Analog with Gravitational Microlensing

Version 2 2025-01-15, 01:00
Version 1 2023-05-16, 21:49
journal contribution
posted on 2025-01-15, 01:00 authored by BS Gaudi, DP Bennett, A Udalski, A Gould, GW Christie, D Maoz, S Dong, J McCormick, MK Szymanski, PJ Tristram, S Nikolaev, B Paczynski, M Kubiak, G Pietrzynski, I Soszynski, O Szewczyk, K Ulaczyk, L Wyrzykowski, DL DePoy, C Han, S Kaspi, CU Lee, F Mallia, T Natusch, RW Pogge, BG Park, F Abe, IA Bond, CS Botzler, A Fukui, JB Hearnshaw, Y Itow, K Kamiya, AV Korpela, PM Kilmartin, W Lin, K Masuda, Y Matsubara, M Motomura, Y Muraki, S Nakamura, T Okumura, K Ohnishi, NJ Rattenbury, T Sako, T Saito, S Sato, L Skuljan, DJ Sullivan, T Sumi, Wl Sweatman, PCM Yock, MD Albrow, A Allan, Jean-Philippe BeaulieuJean-Philippe Beaulieu, MJ Burgdorf, KH Cook, C Coutures, M Dominik, S Dieters, P Fouque, JG Greenhill, K Horne, I Steele, Y Tsapras, B Chaboyer, A Crocker, S Frank, B Macintosh
Searches for extrasolar planets have uncovered an astonishing diversity of planetary systems, yet the frequency of solar system analogs remains unknown. The gravitational microlensing planet search method is potentially sensitive to multiple-planet systems containing analogs of all the solar system planets except Mercury. We report the detection of a multiple-planet system with microlensing. We identify two planets with masses of 0.71 and 0.27 times the mass of Jupiter and orbital separations of 2.3 and 4.6 astronomical units orbiting a primary star of mass 0.50 solar mass at a distance of 1.5 kiloparsecs. This system resembles a scaled version of our solar system in that the mass ratio, separation ratio, and equilibrium temperatures of the planets are similar to those of Jupiter and Saturn. These planets could not have been detected with other techniques; their discovery from only six confirmed microlensing planet detections suggests that solar system analogs may be common.

History

Publication title

Science

Volume

319

Issue

5865

Pagination

927-930

ISSN

0036-8075

Department/School

School of Natural Sciences, Physics

Publisher

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Publication status

  • Published

Place of publication

Washington DC, USA

Rights statement

Copyright © 2008. American Association for the Advancement of Science

Socio-economic Objectives

280120 Expanding knowledge in the physical sciences

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