2012•ScienceOpen access
Kepler-47: A Transiting Circumbinary Multiplanet System
Jerome A. Orosz, William F. Welsh, Joshua A. Carter, Daniel C. Fabrycky, William D. Cochran, Michael Endl, Eric B. Ford, Nader Haghighipour, Phillip J. MacQueen, T. Mazeh, Roberto Sanchis-Ojeda, Donald R. Short, Guillermo Torres, Eric Agol, Lars A. Buchhave, Laurance R. Doyle, Howard Isaacson, Jack J. Lissauer, Geoffrey W. Marcy, Avi Shporer, Gur Windmiller, Thomas Barclay, Alan P. Boss, Bruce Clarke, Jonathan J. Fortney, John C. Geary, Matthew J. Holman, Daniel Huber, Jon M. Jenkins, Karen Kinemuchi, Ethan Kruse, Darin Ragozzine, Dimitar Sasselov, Martin Still, Peter Tenenbaum, Kamal Uddin, Joshua N. Winn, David Koch, W. J. Borucki
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Abstract
We report the detection of Kepler-47, a system consisting of two planets orbiting around an eclipsing pair of stars. The inner and outer planets have radii 3.0 and 4.6 times that of Earth, respectively. The binary star consists of a Sun-like star and a companion roughly one-third its size, orbiting each other every 7.45 days. With an orbital period of 49.5 days, 18 transits of the inner planet have been observed, allowing a detailed characterization of its orbit and those of the stars. The outer planet's orbital period is 303.2 days, and although the planet is not Earth-like, it resides within the classical "habitable zone," where liquid water could exist on an Earth-like planet. With its two known planets, Kepler-47 establishes that close binary stars can host complete planetary systems.
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