A planet within the debris disk around the pre-main-sequence star AU Microscopii

doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2400-z

A planet within the debris disk around the pre-main-sequence star AUえーゆー Microscopii

AUえーゆー Microscopii (AUえーゆー Mic) is the second closest pre-main-sequence star, at a distance of 9.79 parsecs and with an age of 22 million years¹. AUえーゆー Mic possesses a relatively rare² and spatially resolved³ edge-on debris disk extending from about 35 to 210 astronomical units from the star⁴, and with clumps exhibiting non-Keplerian motion^5-7. Detection of newly formed planets around such a star is challenged by the presence of spots, plage, flares and other manifestations of magnetic `activity' on the star^8,9. Here we report observations of a planet transiting AUえーゆー Mic. The transiting planet, AUえーゆー Mic b, has an orbital period of 8.46 days, an orbital distance of 0.07 astronomical units, a radius of 0.4 Jupiter radii, and a mass of less than 0.18 Jupiter masses at 3σしぐま confidence. Our observations of a planet co-existing with a debris disk offer the opportunity to test the predictions of current models of planet formation and evolution.

Publication:

Nature

Pub Date:

June 2020

DOI:

10.1038/s41586-020-2400-z

arXiv:

arXiv:2006.13248

Bibcode:

2020Natur.582..497P

Keywords:

Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics;
Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

E-Print:

Nature, published June 24th [author spelling name fix]

NASA/ADS

A planet within the debris disk around the pre-main-sequence star AUえーゆー Microscopii

Abstract