Accurate parameters of the oldest known rocky-exoplanet hosting system: Kepler-10 revisited

Abstract

Since the discovery of Kepler-10, the system has received considerable interest because it contains a small, rocky planet which orbits the star in less than a day. The system's parameters, announced by the Kepler team and subsequently used in further research, were based on only 5 months of data. We have reanalyzed this system using the full span of 29 months of Kepler photometric data, and obtained improved information about its star and the planets. A detailed asteroseismic analysis of the extended time series provides a significant improvement on the stellar parameters: Not only can we state that Kepler-10 is the oldest known rocky-planet-harboring system at 10.41 +/- 1.36 Gyr, but these parameters combined with improved planetary parameters from new transit fits gives us the radius of Kepler-10b to within just 125 km. A new analysis of the full planetary phase curve leads to new estimates on the planetary temperature and albedo, which remain degenerate in the Kepler band. Our modeling suggests that the flux level during the occultation is slightly lower than at the transit wings, which would imply that the nightside of this planet has a non-negligible temperature.

14 pages (in the used format), 4 figures. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal at December 3rd 2013

References in corpus (11)

• KEPLER's First Rocky Planet: Kepler-10b
• ADIPLS -- the Aarhus adiabatic oscillation package
• Correcting stellar oscillation frequencies for near-surface effects
• ASTEC -- the Aarhus STellar Evolution Code
• Modeling Kepler transit light curves as false positives: Rejection of blend scenarios for Kepler-9, and validation of Kepler-9d, a super-Earth-size planet in a multiple system
• Optical Phase Curves of Kepler Exoplanets
• Transits and Occultations of an Earth-Sized Planet in an 8.5-Hour Orbit
• Stellar ages and convective cores in field main-sequence stars: first asteroseismic application to two Kepler targets
• Thermal Emission from Transiting Very-Hot Jupiters: Prospects for Ground-based Detection at Optical Wavelengths
• Using Stellar Densities to Evaluate Transiting Exoplanetary Candidates
• Atmospheric mass loss and evolution of short-period exoplanets: the examples of CoRoT-7b and Kepler-10b

Cited by in corpus (25)

• Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler. VIII. A Fully Automated Catalog With Measured Completeness and Reliability Based on Data Release 25
• Ages and fundamental properties of Kepler exoplanet host stars from asteroseismology
• Eccentricity from transit photometry: small planets in Kepler multi-planet systems have low eccentricities
• A Study of the Shortest-Period Planets Found With Kepler
• An ancient extrasolar system with five sub-Earth-size planets
• Changing Phases of Alien Worlds: Probing Atmospheres of Kepler Planets with High-Precision Photometry
• The Kepler-10 planetary system revisited by HARPS-N: A hot rocky world and a solid Neptune-mass planet
• Atmosphere-interior exchange on hot rocky exoplanets
• An ultra-short period rocky super-Earth with a secondary eclipse and a Neptune-like companion around K2-141
• A giant impact as the likely origin of different twins in the Kepler-107 exoplanet system
• A Semi-Analytical Model of Visible-Wavelength Phase Curves of Exoplanets and Applications to Kepler-7 b and Kepler-10 b
• Kepler-93b: A Terrestrial World Measured to within 120 km, and a Test Case for a New Spitzer Observing Mode
• The Densities of Planets in Multiple Stellar Systems
• Chemical Diversity of Super-Earths As a Consequence of Formation
• Tidal dissipation in a homogeneous spherical body. II. Three examples: Mercury, Io, and Kepler-10 b
• Statistical Eclipses of Close-in Kepler Sub-Saturns
• A low-eccentricity migration pathway for a 13-h-period Earth analogue in a four-planet system
• High-cadence spectroscopy of M-dwarfs - II. Searching for stellar pulsations with HARPS
• Resonant and Ultra-short-period Planet Systems are at Opposite Ends of the Exoplanet Age Distribution
• How to Characterize the Atmosphere of a Transiting Exoplanet
• Probing Kepler's hottest small planets via homogeneous search and analysis of optical secondary eclipses and phase variations
• Exploring Super-Earth Surfaces: Albedo of Near-Airless Magma Ocean Planets and Topography
• AME - Asteroseismology Made Easy. Estimating stellar properties by use of scaled models
• In-depth characterization of the Kepler-10 three-planet system with HARPS-N radial velocities and Kepler transit timing variations
• Ages for exoplanet host stars