WASP-21b: a hot-Saturn exoplanet transiting a thick disc star

Don Pollacco

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

51 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We report the discovery of WASP-21b, a new transiting exoplanet discovered by the Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP) Consortium and established and characterized with the FIES, SOPHIE, CORALIE and HARPS fiber-fed echelle spectrographs. A 4.3-d period, 1.1% transit depth and 3.4-h duration are derived for WASP-21b using SuperWASP-North and high precision photometric observations at the Liverpool Telescope. Simultaneous fitting to the photometric and radial velocity data with a Markov Chain Monte Carlo procedure leads to a planet in the mass regime of Saturn. With a radius of 1.07 RJup and mass of 0.30 MJup, WASP-21b has a density close to 0.24 ?Jup corresponding to the distribution peak at low density of transiting gaseous giant planets. With a host star metallicity [Fe/H] of -0.46, WASP-21b strengthens the correlation between planetary density and host star metallicity for the five known Saturn-like transiting planets. Furthermore there are clear indications that WASP-21b is the first transiting planet belonging to the thick disc.
Original languageEnglish
Article numberA98
Pages (from-to)A98
Number of pages1
JournalAstronomy and Astrophysics
Volume519
Issue number10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 17 Sept 2010

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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