The WASP and SOPHIE collaboration has announced the discovery of WASP-3b, one of the hottest exoplanets discovered so far.
At a temperature of more than 1700 degrees Celsius WASP-3b
has the potential to place stringent constraints on exoplanet atmospheric models.
The first transits of WASP-3b were detected by the SuperWASP cameras in the Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory,
La Palma. The transits were then confirmed by the IAC80 telescope
in Izaña Observatory,
Tenerife, as part of the
Canarian Observatories' International Time Programme for 2007, and by the University of Keele 60-cm telescope.
The discovery confirmation, using the radial velocity method, came from data obtained with the
SOPHIE spectrograph on the Observatoire de Haute-Provence's 1.93m telescope.
Observations made with the adaptive-optics system NAOMI+INGRID on the William Herschel Telescope
were used to exclude the possibility of a nearby eclipsing-binary system being the cause of the transits.
WASP-3, the host star, lies at
approximately 220 parsecs or 720 light years and no companion stars were found to lie within
45 astronomical units of WASP-3.
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WASP-3b is one of hottest extrasolar planets ever detected. Credit: artist impression by
IAC's multimedia service. |
WASP-3b has a mass of 1.6-1.8 Jupiter masses and it transists its host star every 1.8 days, one of the shortest
orbital periods yet discovered. The finding of Jupiter-mass planets around
other stars supports the idea that Earth-sized planets can also form and be detected as astronomers'
technology improves.
The Wide Area Search for Planets (WASP) is the first team to detect planets in both the Northern and Southern
Hemisphere using the transit method, and it is also the most ambitious project
in the world designed to discover large planets. WASP-3b is the third exoplanet discovered by WASP in the North.
The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes is a member of the WASP consortium.
More information:
- D. Pollacco, et. al., 2007, WASP-3b: a strongly-irradiated transiting gas-giant planet, arXiv:0711.0126v1 [astro-ph].
- Three New Planets Announced by UK's Planet Hunters, STFC press release, 31st October, 2007.
Available versions: HTML | HTML local copy.
- Detectado uno de los planetas extrasolares más calientes, IAC press release, 8th November, 2007. Available versions: HTML | PDF local copy
- SuperWASP web site.
