Planet Hunters. VII. Discovery of a New Low-mass, Low-density Planet (PH3 C) Orbiting Kepler-289 with Mass Measurements of Two Additional Planets (PH3 B and D)

摘要

We report the discovery of one newly confirmed planet (P = 66.06 days, R_P = 2.68 ± 0.17 R_⊕) and mass determinations of two previously validated Kepler planets, Kepler-289 b (P = 34.55 days, R_P = 2.15 ± 0.10 R_⊕) and Kepler-289-c (P = 125.85 days, R_P = 11.59 ± 0.10 R_⊕), through their transit timing variations (TTVs). We also exclude the possibility that these three planets reside in a 1:2:4 Laplace resonance. The outer planet has very deep (~1.3%), high signal-to-noise transits, which puts extremely tight constraints on its host star's stellar properties via Kepler's Third Law. The star PH3 is a young (~1 Gyr as determined by isochrones and gyrochronology), Sun-like star with M_* = 1.08 ± 0.02 M_☉, R_* = 1.00 ± 0.02 R_☉, and T_(eff) = 5990 ± 38 K. The middle planet's large TTV amplitude (~5 hr) resulted either in non-detections or inaccurate detections in previous searches. A strong chopping signal, a shorter period sinusoid in the TTVs, allows us to break the mass-eccentricity degeneracy and uniquely determine the masses of the inner, middle, and outer planets to be M = 7.3 ± 6.8 M_⊕, 4.0 ± 0.9 M_⊕, and M = 132 ± 17 M_⊕, which we designate PH3 b, c, and d, respectively. Furthermore, the middle planet, PH3 c, has a relatively low density, ρ = 1.2 ± 0.3 g cm^(–3) for a planet of its mass, requiring a substantial H/He atmosphere of 2.1^(+0.8)_(-0.3)% by mass, and joins a growing population of low-mass, low-density planets.