Issue |
A&A
Volume 658, February 2022
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A107 | |
Number of page(s) | 11 | |
Section | Planets and planetary systems | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202142110 | |
Published online | 09 February 2022 |
The similarity of multi-planet systems
1
Observatoire Astronomique de l’Université de Genève,
51 Ch. des Maillettes,
Sauverny,
1290
Versoix, Switzerland
e-mail: jonfr17@gmail.com
2
Institute for Computational Science, University of Zurich,
Winterthurerstr. 190,
8057
Zurich, Switzerland
Received:
30
August
2021
Accepted:
6
December
2021
Previous studies using Kepler data suggest that planets orbiting the same star tend to have similar sizes. However, due to the faintness of the stars, only a few of the planets were also detected with radial velocity follow-ups, and therefore the planetary masses were mostly unknown. It is therefore yet to be determined whether planetary systems indeed behave like “peas in a pod”. Follow-up programs of TESS targets significantly increased the number of confirmed planets with mass measurements, allowing for a more detailed statistical analysis of multi-planet systems. In this work we explore the similarity in radii, masses, densities, and period ratios of planets within planetary systems. We show that planets in the same system that are similar in radii could be rather different in mass and vice versa, and that typically the planetary radii of a given planetary system are more similar than the masses. We also find a transition in the peas in a pod pattern for planets more massive than ~100 M⊕ and larger than ~10 R⊕. Planets below these limits are found to be significantly more uniform. We conclude that other quantities, such as density, may be crucial to fully understanding the nature of planetary systems and that, due to the diversity of planets within a planetary system, increasing the number of detected systems is crucial for understanding the exoplanetary demographics.
Key words: planets and satellites: general / planets and satellites: detection
© ESO 2022
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.