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. 2015 Oct 2;350(6256):64-7.
doi: 10.1126/science.aac5891. Epub 2015 Aug 13.

Discovery and spectroscopy of the young jovian planet 51 Eri b with the Gemini Planet Imager

B Macintosh  1 J R Graham  2 T Barman  3 R J De Rosa  2 Q Konopacky  4 M S Marley  5 C Marois  6 E L Nielsen  7 L Pueyo  8 A Rajan  9 J Rameau  10 D Saumon  11 J J Wang  2 J Patience  9 M Ammons  12 P Arriaga  13 E Artigau  10 S Beckwith  2 J Brewster  14 S Bruzzone  15 J Bulger  16 B Burningham  17 A S Burrows  18 C Chen  8 E Chiang  2 J K Chilcote  19 R I Dawson  2 R Dong  2 R Doyon  10 Z H Draper  20 G Duchêne  21 T M Esposito  13 D Fabrycky  22 M P Fitzgerald  13 K B Follette  23 J J Fortney  24 B Gerard  20 S Goodsell  25 A Z Greenbaum  26 P Hibon  27 S Hinkley  28 T H Cotten  29 L-W Hung  13 P Ingraham  30 M Johnson-Groh  20 P Kalas  31 D Lafreniere  10 J E Larkin  13 J Lee  29 M Line  24 D Long  8 J Maire  19 F Marchis  14 B C Matthews  6 C E Max  24 S Metchev  32 M A Millar-Blanchaer  33 T Mittal  2 C V Morley  24 K M Morzinski  34 R Murray-Clay  35 R Oppenheimer  36 D W Palmer  12 R Patel  37 M D Perrin  8 L A Poyneer  12 R R Rafikov  18 F T Rantakyrö  27 E L Rice  38 P Rojo  39 A R Rudy  24 J-B Ruffio  40 M T Ruiz  39 N Sadakuni  41 L Saddlemyer  42 M Salama  2 D Savransky  43 A C Schneider  44 A Sivaramakrishnan  8 I Song  29 R Soummer  8 S Thomas  30 G Vasisht  45 J K Wallace  45 K Ward-Duong  9 S J Wiktorowicz  24 S G Wolff  26 B Zuckerman  13
Affiliations

Discovery and spectroscopy of the young jovian planet 51 Eri b with the Gemini Planet Imager

B Macintosh et al. Science. .

Abstract

Directly detecting thermal emission from young extrasolar planets allows measurement of their atmospheric compositions and luminosities, which are influenced by their formation mechanisms. Using the Gemini Planet Imager, we discovered a planet orbiting the ~20-million-year-old star 51 Eridani at a projected separation of 13 astronomical units. Near-infrared observations show a spectrum with strong methane and water-vapor absorption. Modeling of the spectra and photometry yields a luminosity (normalized by the luminosity of the Sun) of 1.6 to 4.0 × 10(-6) and an effective temperature of 600 to 750 kelvin. For this age and luminosity, "hot-start" formation models indicate a mass twice that of Jupiter. This planet also has a sufficiently low luminosity to be consistent with the "cold-start" core-accretion process that may have formed Jupiter.

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