The Anglo-Australian Planet Search. XXV. A candidate massive Saturn analog orbiting HD 30177

Robert A. Wittenmyer, Jonathan Horner, M. W. Mengel, R. P. Butler, D. J. Wright, C. G. Tinney, B. D. Carter, H. R. A. Jones, G. Anglada-Escudé, J. Bailey, Simon J. O'Toole

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

23 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We report the discovery of a second long-period giant planet orbiting HD 30177, a star previously known to host a massive Jupiter analog (HD 30177b: a = 3.8 ±0.1 au, m sin i = 9.7 ±0.5 M Jup). HD 30177c can be regarded as a massive Saturn analog in this system, with a = 9.9 ±1.0 au and m sin i = 7.6 ±3.1 M Jup. The formal best-fit solution slightly favors a closer-in planet at a ∼ 7 au, but detailed n-body dynamical simulations show that configuration to be unstable. A shallow local minimum of longer period, lower eccentricity solutions was found to be dynamically stable, and hence we adopt the longer period in this work. The proposed ∼32 year orbit remains incomplete; further monitoring of this and other stars is necessary to reveal the population of distant gas giant planets with orbital separations a ∼ 10 au, analogous to that of Saturn.

Original languageEnglish
Article number167
Pages (from-to)1-12
Number of pages12
JournalThe Astronomical Journal
Volume153
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2017
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • planetary systems
  • stars: individual (HD 30177)
  • techniques: radial velocities

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