Thursday, January 30, 2025

82 G. Eridani

Although Geneva won't tell Anglophones, 82 Gould Eridani is open access. This system, also Henry Draper's 20794 or Gliese 139, owns at least two planets. The inner one b was constrained, sort-of; so was a 90-ish-day one, once-upon-a-time "d". The forty-day one between, then "c", was sus, and ruled out a couple years back. NASA still haven't updated c which they still think is "d".

After decades of watching, Nari et al. have a new "d" (I'm tweaking the format):

We confirm the presence of three planets, with periods of 18.3142 ±0.0022 days, 89.68 ±0.10 d, and 647.6−2.7+2.5 d; along with [minimum-]masses of 2.15 ±0.17 M, 2.98 ±0.29 M, and 5.82 ±0.57 M respectively. For the outer planet, we find an eccentricity of 0.45−0.11+0.10, whereas the inner planets are compatible with circular orbits. The latter is likely to be a rocky planet in the habitable zone of HD 20794. From the analysis of activity indicators, we find evidence of a magnetic cycle with a period of ~3000 d, along with evidence pointing to a rotation period of ~39 d.

The rotation is what raised up that forty day phantom.

The system is only 19.7 light years away, 6.04 parsecs. Its star is 68.7% luminosity, ~79% solar mass. It is too heavy for us to use the photoeccentric-effect on its planets. Eccentricities, rather, are measured direct - where they could be; the inner planets are e<0.15ish. The planets were verified with a post-processing pipeline ... tool called YARARA.

This 2014 paper is how they got HZ. As to "d":

The stellar flux at the periastron [0.75 AU] is almost seven times stronger than the stellar flux at the apoaster [1.96 AU]. HD 20794 d spends ~59% of its orbit inside the optimistic HZ, and ~38% of its orbit inside the conservative HZ.

I am not an optimist; "d" is mostly too cold. Its extreme eccentricity crossing the HZ suggests it also loses air, as well as running off any other HZ planets. 'Tis hardly a laboratoire pour la quête de la vie.

82 G.E. might rather serve as a lab for planetology and orbital-dynamics. Its star is a quiet one by G standards so might actually not be hitting the planets too hard; and "d" is heavy. I assume this planet a Sudarsky II subUranus and not hycean. Nari's paper likens it to Gliese 514 b around a M at 7.6 pc.

Planet "d" should be directly visible to Habitable World Observatory, they say. Giving us inclination, radius, albedo; therefore density.

To me, that "d" eccentricity signals some "e" they haven't seen yet. They allow a 50 M halfSaturn could run out at 3-10 AU. This may be visible to space 'scopes also. That's the sort of thing that could Zeipel us some transits someday.

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