[extropy-chat] first ex-solar planet seen

[Patrick Wilken]

Just accepted for publication...

A Giant Planet Candidate near a Young Brown Dwarf
Direct VLT/NACO Observations using IR Wavefront Sensing

Chauvin, A.-M. Lagrange, C. Dumas, B. Zuckerman, D. Mouillet, I. Song, 
J.-L. Beuzit, and P. Lowrance

Abstract. We present deep VLT/NACO infrared imaging and spectroscopic 
observations of the brown dwarf
2MASSWJ1207334-393254, obtained during our on-going adaptive optics 
survey of southern young, nearby associations. This 25 M_Jup brown 
dwarf, located approx. 70 pc from Earth, has been recently identified 
as a member of the TW Hydrae Association (age approx. 8 Myr). Using 
adaptive optics infrared wavefront sensing to acquire sharp images of 
its circumstellar environment, we discovered a very faint and very red 
object at a close separation of  approx. 780 mas (approx. 55 AU). 
Photometry in the H, Ks and L' bands and upper limit in J-band are 
compatible with a spectral type L5-L9.5. Near-infrared spectroscopy is 
consistent with this spectral type estimate. Different evolutionary 
models predict an object within the planetary regime with a mass of M = 
5 +/- 2 M_Jup and an effective temperature of T_eff  = 1250 +/- 200 K.

Keywords. 2MASSWJ1207334 393254 – brown dwarf – giant planet – adaptive 
optics imaging and spectroscopy

full paper: http://www.sc.eso.org/~gchauvin/Gg222.pdf