Multiplanet system imaged at HR 8799

Heh... someone's pointed out something which is not about Hubble that's also extremely interesting, perhaps more so...

(Unfortunately it's probably still embargoed too, until later today it looks like)

Hi!

The news is released: http://www.keckobservatory.org/article.php?id=228

There are 3 new exoplanets discoverd around the star HR8799. The masses are 10, 9 and 6 M_jup and the semimajor axis are 24, 37 and 67 AU.

Bye!

Hmmm... the article in question does not appear on the list of press releases yet, so not sure if it counts as officially released yet.

And also I guess we should split the non-Hubble news out of this thread? Has been done.

http://www.keckobservatory.org/article.php?id=228

Jaw dropping! Unbelievable even! Very, very, VERY COOL!

Wonder if the motion of the star is at all prepurbed by the planets they have imaged. If the motion of the star is preturbed then they could model for the presence of other planets also...

I thought the post above (x2) mine meant that the discovery was released???

Well it is released now (it appears on the W. M. Keck Observatory website's list of press releases), however at the time Michael Johne posted the link, the release was not accessible from the main part of the website he linked to. Therefore it probably shouldn't have been considered "released" until it appeared properly.

It's always fun when you find such things that should probably not be available, however there are certain ethical details with posting the details of such findings before they have been generally released.

Could this also have anything to do with the Hubble's announcement a couple of days ago? Something along the lines of it confirming the discovery?

No, it's an independent (and very much welcome) discovery.

Now this one will pose problems for planet formation theories... these planets are located quite a way out from the region expected to form Jovians, are very massive and orbit a very young star. One planet at such distances might be scattering, but a system of them makes things very interesting indeed.

There must be an efficient mechanism for getting material out that far. Or perhaps the protoplanetary disks are more massive than believed?

Apparently the announcement has been taken down from the Keck site.

Well the embargo is now definitely over: http://www.gemini.edu/threeplanetspr

Plus the details are up on EPE: http://exoplanet.eu/star.php?st=HR+8799

This system is consistent with the observation that planets around stars more massive than the Sun do not have the metallicity dependence for forming giant planets: iron abundance is only 34% solar.

I'm not sure what's going on. What happened to HR 8799 d? The new, bluer image shows only b and c.

Here's the original image.