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This experiment uses data from NASA telescopes to analyze exoplanet transits and determine planetary properties. The document analyzes light curves of three exoplanets - Kepler-12b, Kepler-40b, and KOI-217b - to calculate their orbital radii, radii, and compare to accepted values. Calculations are made using equations for luminosity, area of a circle, and Kepler's third law. Results found are very close to actual values, showing transit photometry is effective for exoplanet characterization, especially those with orbits <0.1AU.

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Kristopher Mitchell
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92 views

Astro 2 PDF

This experiment uses data from NASA telescopes to analyze exoplanet transits and determine planetary properties. The document analyzes light curves of three exoplanets - Kepler-12b, Kepler-40b, and KOI-217b - to calculate their orbital radii, radii, and compare to accepted values. Calculations are made using equations for luminosity, area of a circle, and Kepler's third law. Results found are very close to actual values, showing transit photometry is effective for exoplanet characterization, especially those with orbits <0.1AU.

Uploaded by

Kristopher Mitchell
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Astro 2 - Exoplanets transits

Dylan Price
13.1.15 to 20.1.15

This experiment show how we discover and get data on exoplanets just from their transits across their
parent star. By taking careful measurements of the luminosity dip when the planet transits across the star
and plotting a light curve we can find out its orbital time period, the radius of the orbit, the size of planet
and more. We take these measurement using photo-sensitive telescopes which can look out into deep space
and give us accurate readings of light. We used data gathered from such telescopes published by NASA to
work these out. Using this data we got values quite close to the accepted values for the planets.

Introduction

itational constant, M is the mass of the body the


object is orbitting.

When a planet transits across their parent star they


block out some of the light emitted by the star. Using very photosensitive measuring devices like a large
telescope we can take readings of this planet and work
out its basic features. This does however require the
planet to have a favourable orbit (i.e. it is the only
body transitting across when it does as to not give
false readings therefore not all exoplanets found will
have data as good as the ones used in this paper.
Equations we have used frequently in this paper
will be these:

Method

Using the NASA exoplanet archive[1] we found the


data for the system of Kepler-12, and of planet
Kepler-12-b from here we opened the light curve for
the planet. This is the data for when the planet transits across its parent star.
The screenshot on the next page shows the
lightcurve, I have selected to only show 1 of the curves
using the button that looks like stacked paper, select2 2
4
L = 4 r T
(1) ing only the top row. This gives the graph shown.
When this was up and I was satisfied with the graph
Luminosity equation for a black body. Where L is I normalised the y-axis bu using the 3rd tab shown
luminosity, r is the radius of the black body, sigma is in the picture. The normalised y-axis shows the luthe Stefan-Boltzmann constant and T is the effective minosity dip to be from 1.000 to 0.985, showing the
temperature.
dip as a fraction and not values of flux, this makes
calculation easier. The graph also shows us the time
A = r2
(2) period between each transit so we can get a value for
its orbital period.
Area of a circle
T 2 GM 3
,R T2
(3)
4 2
Keplars third law. Where R is radius of object, T is
the orbital period of the object, G is newtons gravR3 =

Screenshot of the light curve with settings.

2.1

Radius of Kepler-12b

3.1

Time period: 6.87 0.27 days; Luminosity dip percentage: 0.4%

Using the dip in luminosity we can find out the


planets radius. For Kepler-12 it was found to be
from 1 to 0.983. This means the planet was blocking
1.7% of the stars luminosity as it transits across. We
assume that we see a circlular disc from the star and
the planet transitting for this we can use equation 2
to work out the area of the star and planet. We also
assume that the planet radiates as a black body so
the Luminosity equation (equation 1) can be used for
it. From the equations shown in the Introduction section we can see that L r2 and that A r2 therefore
A L and so A L. This means that the ratio
between the area of the planet and the star is same as
the dip in luminosity when the planet transits across
A
= 1.7% for
the star, in mathematical terms Aplanet
star
Kepler-12b. Putting this through gives the value of
the radius of the planet as 1.34108 m . The accepted
value is 1.3 108 m, therefore we are very close with
our values, only 3% out.

2.2

Radius of planet = 8.67 107 m, actual is 8.17


107 m, 5.76% out but still very close.
Radius of orbit = 1.19 1010 4.76 108 m =
0.08 0.003AU. This is the same as the actual
value.

3.2

KOI-217b

Time period: 3.91 0.1 days; Luminosity dip percentage: 2.375% .


Radius of planet = 9.18 107 m, actual is 7.76
107 m which is 15% out
Radius of orbit = 7.97 109 1.594 108 m =
0.050.001AU, the actual value was 0.06AU but
it had no error I could find, making my value 16%
out.

Orbital Radius of Kepler-12b

To work out the orbital radius of the planet you first


need to find out the orbital period of the planet, fortunatly we can find this out from the time period
between the two dips in the image on page 2 we also
need the mass of Kepler-12 which is 1.166x the mass
of the sun. The time period is worked out to be about
4.4 0.025 days which is 3801609s and the mass of
the star is 2.321030 , using these values we can input
it into equation 3:
r
2
11 2.32 1030
3 3801609 6.67 10
Rorbit =
4 2
(4)
This all comes out to be 8.19 109 m which is 0.05
0.006AU.The accepted value for the orbital radius is
within our errors at 0.0556AU.

Kepler-40b

Analysis

My measurements are very close to the actual values


shown in the confirmed planets table[2] . This shows
that the transits method works very well to get true
values for the planets data. If I were to use more than
one light curve in my measurement I believe it would
improve the accuracy of my results as they would give
me an average and an easier way to spot mistake in
other readings but it is rare to find a second light
curve which gives readings which are useable for the
same planet using this method. A difficulty I faced
when finding two other planets was finding a light
curve with useable data, most of the time the planet
had a light curve which showed an imperceptable dip
and when checking these planets I noticed they had
larger AU than the ones I used in the end.

Radius and orbits of planets


Kepler-40b and KOI-217b

We apply the same method to these two other exoplanets and get these results:
3

Conclusion

The transit method works very well in working out


values for all sorts of planetary data but I believe
the method is biased towards planets with a small
AU as all planets we found with a good light curve
all had 0.1AU this leads me to believe that planets
with larger AUs dont block enough light from their
parent stars for the transit method to work properly.
The method also favours planets with more circular
orbits.

References
[1] http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.
edu/index.html
[2] http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.
edu/cgi-bin/TblView/nph-tblView?app=
ExoTbls&config=planets

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