An international research team, including John Livingston's graduate student (3rd year doctoral student) at the University of Tokyo, discovered (demonstrated) 44 new exoplanets at once.It was the largest number of discoveries in Japan.The team consists of researchers and students from Italy, Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands, as well as Japan.

 Since its launch in 2009, NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has discovered more than 5000 exoplanets and their candidates in a region of Cygnus.However, it has been used as a new mission "K2013" to abandon observation after the failure in 2 and to observe different areas on the ecliptic plane seasonally.The discovered celestial bodies are only planet candidates, and confirmation and verification by ground observations are indispensable. A little less than 2 planets have been demonstrated in the K300 mission, but more diverse planets have been required to be demonstrated.

 This time, the international research team selected promising planet candidates from the raw data of the K2 mission by ultra-precision measurement of stellar brightness, and conducted follow-up observations of candidate celestial bodies from the ground and spectroscopic observations. We have succeeded in demonstrating as many as 44 exoplanets.This is the largest number of exoplanets discovered in Japan.

 As a result, the number of exoplanets demonstrated in the K2 mission has well exceeded 300.Except for the release of candidate celestial bodies in units of 1000 from the Kepler satellite, the fact that graduate students were able to lead the results of extremely rare large numbers of discoveries is expected to be an area where exoplanet research can play an active role for young people.

 The number of known proven exoplanets is about 4000, but this discovery is significant in that it has increased the number of bright small planets.One of these is a smaller planet around Venus around the red dwarf.This is an important target for understanding the formation and evolution of terrestrial rock planets.

Paper information:[The Astronomical Journal] 44 Validated Planets from K2 Campaign 10

Tokyo University

Established in the 10th year of the Meiji era.A university with the longest history in Japan and at the forefront of Japanese knowledge

The University of Tokyo was established in 1877 (Meiji 10) by integrating the Tokyo Kaisei School and the Tokyo Medical School.Since its establishment, it has developed education and research in a unique way in the world as a leading university in Japan and an academic center for the fusion of East and West cultures.As a result, many human resources have been produced in a wide range of fields, and many research achievements […]

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