CoRoT-7 (TYC 4799-1733-1) is a

binary star A binary star or binary star system is a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars in the night sky that are seen as a single object to the naked eye are often resolved as separate stars us ...

system made up of a late

G-type star In astronomy, stellar classification is the classification of stars based on their spectral characteristics. Electromagnetic radiation from the star is analyzed by splitting it with a prism or diffraction grating into a spectrum exhibiting the ...

and a M-dwarf star that was discovered in 2021. The primary star has three

exoplanets An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992 around a pulsar, and the first detection around a main-sequence star was in 1995. A different planet, first detec ...

, including CoRoT-7b, a

super-Earth A super-Earth is a type of exoplanet with a mass higher than Earth, but substantially below those of the Solar System's ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, which are 14.5 and 17.1 times Earth's, respectively. The term "super-Earth" refers only to t ...

exoplanet that is remarkable due to its extremely high temperature (around 2000°C) and very short

orbital period The orbital period (also revolution period) is the amount of time a given astronomical object takes to complete one orbit around another object. In astronomy, it usually applies to planets or asteroids orbiting the Sun, moons orbiting planets ...

, around 20 hours. It was the first exoplanet shown to be rocky. The system has the name CoRoT-7 after the CoRoT space telescope, which discovered the exoplanets around the star CoRoT-7A. The stellar system is 520 light-years from the Earth.

Stellar components

CoRoT-7A

The primary, CoRoT-7A is a G-type main sequence

star A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...

, slightly smaller, cooler, and younger than the

Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

. It has an

apparent magnitude Apparent magnitude () is a measure of the Irradiance, brightness of a star, astronomical object or other celestial objects like artificial satellites. Its value depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance, and any extinction (astronomy), ...

of 11.67, fainter than

Proxima Centauri Proxima Centauri is the nearest star to Earth after the Sun, located 4.25 light-years away in the southern constellation of Centaurus. This object was discovered in 1915 by Robert T. A. Innes, Robert Innes. It is a small, low-mass st ...

(mag. 11.05), the nearest star to the Sun, and is far too faint to be seen with the naked eye. This star is approximately 520

light-year A light-year, alternatively spelled light year (ly or lyr), is a unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equal to exactly , which is approximately 9.46 trillion km or 5.88 trillion mi. As defined by the International Astr ...

s away from the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...

in the

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The first constellati ...

Monoceros Monoceros ( Greek: , "unicorn") is a faint constellation on the celestial equator. Its definition is attributed to the 17th-century cartographer Petrus Plancius. It is bordered by Orion to the west, Gemini to the north, Canis Major to the s ...

(the Unicorn).

CoRoT-7B

The comoving companion CoRoT-7B was discovered in 2021. It is a red dwarf star.

Location and properties

The star is located in the LRa01 field of view of the CoRoT spacecraft. It is about 500 light years from Earth. According to the project website, this field is in the

Monoceros constellation Monoceros (Greek language, Greek: , "unicorn") is a faint constellation on the celestial equator. Its definition is attributed to the 17th-century cartographer Petrus Plancius. It is bordered by Orion (constellation), Orion to the west, Gemini ...

. Published data lists the stellar properties as being a G9V yellow dwarf with a temperature of 5250 K, a radius of about 82% of the Sun and a mass of about 91% of the Sun, But other sources have listed it as a (K0V) orange dwarf. The

metallicity In astronomy, metallicity is the Abundance of the chemical elements, abundance of Chemical element, elements present in an object that are heavier than hydrogen and helium. Most of the normal currently detectable (i.e. non-Dark matter, dark) matt ...

is 0.12 ± 0.06. The star is estimated to be about 150 parsecs away and with an age in the range 1.2 – 2.3 billion years, is younger than our own star which has an age of 4.6 billion years. The rotation period of the star, inferred by the

light curve In astronomy, a light curve is a graph (discrete mathematics), graph of the Radiance, light intensity of a celestial object or region as a function of time, typically with the magnitude (astronomy), magnitude of light received on the ''y''-axis ...

obtained by

CoRoT CoRoT (French: ; English: Convection, Rotation and planetary Transits) was a space telescope mission which operated from 2006 to 2013. The mission's two objectives were to search for extrasolar planets with short orbital periods, particularly t ...

, is around 23 days.

Planetary system

The primary star is orbited by the

exoplanet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992 around a pulsar, and the first detection around a main-sequence star was in 1995. A different planet, first det ...

s CoRoT-7b and CoRoT-7c, both discovered in 2009. A third planet CoRoT-7d, initially proposed in a 2010 study, was confirmed in 2022. The discovery of the inner planet was made using the

transit Transit may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Transit'' (1980 film), a 1980 Israeli film * ''Transit'' (1986 film), a Canadian short film * ''Transit'' (2005 film), a film produced by MTV and Staying-Alive about four people in countrie ...

method by the

program. CoRoT-7b is notable for its relatively small size, compared to other exoplanets known at the time. Because of the large difference in brightness between them and their parent star, these

s cannot be seen in a

telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorption, or Reflection (physics), reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally, it was an optical instrument using len ...

; only their gravitational effect can be detected by the

Doppler effect The Doppler effect (also Doppler shift) is the change in the frequency of a wave in relation to an observer who is moving relative to the source of the wave. The ''Doppler effect'' is named after the physicist Christian Doppler, who described ...

on the star's electromagnetic spectrum (radial velocity method), as well as transits of planet b. This star was reported to have stellar activity, making the confirmation process for CoRoT-7b more difficult. In fact, mass estimates are affected by large uncertainty due to stellar activity that perturbs the

radial velocity The radial velocity or line-of-sight velocity of a target with respect to an observer is the rate of change of the vector displacement between the two points. It is formulated as the vector projection of the target-observer relative velocity ...

measurements needed to "weigh" the planets. CoRoT-7d was first proposed by A. P. Hatzes et al. in 2010 by the

radial velocity method Doppler spectroscopy (also known as the radial-velocity method, or colloquially, the wobble method) is an indirect method for finding extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs from radial-velocity measurements via observation of Doppler shifts in th ...

. The existence of CoRoT-7d was disputed by a 2014 study, which concluded that the radial velocity signal was more likely to be an artifact of the stellar rotation. However, a 2022 study provided strong evidence for the existence of this planet, and it is now listed as a confirmed planet in the

NASA Exoplanet Archive The NASA Exoplanet Archive is an online astronomical exoplanet catalog and data service that collects and serves public data that support the search for and characterization of extra-solar planets (exoplanets) and their host stars. It is part of ...

. CoRoT-7d's mass is 17.1 times that of

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

, but its volume and diameter are unknown. One year on CoRoT-7d would be equivalent to 8.966

day A day is the time rotation period, period of a full Earth's rotation, rotation of the Earth with respect to the Sun. On average, this is 24 hours (86,400 seconds). As a day passes at a given location it experiences morning, afternoon, evening, ...

s on Earth.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:CoRoT-7 G-type main-sequence stars M-type main-sequence stars Binary stars Planetary transit variables Planetary systems with three confirmed planets Monoceros CoRoT-7