A giant planet transiting a 3-Myr protostar with a misaligned disk

Madyson G Barber; Andrew W Mann; Andrew Vanderburg; Daniel Krolikowski; Adam Kraus; Megan Ansdell; Logan Pearce; Gregory N Mace; Sean M Andrews; Andrew W Boyle; Karen A Collins; Matthew De Furio; Diana Dragomir; Catherine Espaillat; Adina D Feinstein; Matthew Fields; Daniel Jaffe; Ana Isabel Lopez Murillo; Felipe Murgas; Elisabeth R Newton; Enric Palle; Erica Sawczynec; Richard P Schwarz; Pa Chia Thao; Benjamin M Tofflemire; Cristilyn N Watkins; Jon M Jenkins; David W Latham; George Ricker; Sara Seager; Roland Vanderspek; Joshua N Winn; David Charbonneau; Zahra Essack; David R Rodriguez; Avi Shporer; Joseph D Twicken; Jesus Noel Villaseñor

doi:10.1038/s41586-024-08123-3

A giant planet transiting a 3-Myr protostar with a misaligned disk

Nature. 2024 Nov;635(8039):574-577. doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-08123-3. Epub 2024 Nov 20.

Authors

Madyson G Barber¹, Andrew W Mann², Andrew Vanderburg³, Daniel Krolikowski⁴, Adam Kraus⁵, Megan Ansdell⁶, Logan Pearce⁴, Gregory N Mace⁵, Sean M Andrews⁷, Andrew W Boyle², Karen A Collins⁷, Matthew De Furio⁵, Diana Dragomir⁸, Catherine Espaillat⁹, Adina D Feinstein¹⁰, Matthew Fields², Daniel Jaffe⁵, Ana Isabel Lopez Murillo², Felipe Murgas^{11

12}, Elisabeth R Newton¹³, Enric Palle^{11

12}, Erica Sawczynec⁵, Richard P Schwarz⁷, Pa Chia Thao², Benjamin M Tofflemire⁵, Cristilyn N Watkins⁷, Jon M Jenkins¹⁴, David W Latham⁷, George Ricker³, Sara Seager^{3

15

16}, Roland Vanderspek³, Joshua N Winn¹⁷, David Charbonneau⁷, Zahra Essack⁸, David R Rodriguez¹⁸, Avi Shporer³, Joseph D Twicken^{14

19}, Jesus Noel Villaseñor³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. madysonb@live.unc.edu.
² Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
³ Department of Physics and Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁴ Steward Observatory, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
⁵ Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.
⁶ NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC, USA.
⁷ Center for Astrophysics ∣ Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁸ Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA.
⁹ Institute for Astrophysical Research, Department of Astronomy, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA.
¹⁰ Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA.
¹¹ Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), La Laguna, Spain.
¹² Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), La Laguna, Spain.
¹³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA.
¹⁴ NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA.
¹⁵ Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
¹⁶ Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
¹⁷ Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
¹⁸ Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA.
¹⁹ SETI Institute, Mountain View, CA, USA.

PMID: 39567788
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08123-3

Abstract

Astronomers have found more than a dozen planets transiting stars that are 10-40 million years old¹, but younger transiting planets have remained elusive. The lack of such discoveries may be because planets have not fully formed at this age or because our view is blocked by the protoplanetary disk. However, we now know that many outer disks are warped or broken²; provided the inner disk is depleted, transiting planets may thus be visible. Here we report observations of the transiting planet IRAS 04125+2902 b orbiting a 3-million-year-old, 0.7-solar-mass, pre-main-sequence star in the Taurus Molecular Cloud. The host star harbours a nearly face-on (30 degrees inclination) transitional disk³ and a wide binary companion. The planet has a period of 8.83 days, a radius of 10.7 Earth radii (0.96 Jupiter radii) and a 95%-confidence upper limit on its mass of 90 Earth masses (0.3 Jupiter masses) from radial-velocity measurements, making it a possible precursor of the super-Earths and sub-Neptunes frequently found around main-sequence stars. The rotational broadening of the star and the orbit of the wide (4 arcseconds, 635 astronomical units) companion are both consistent with edge-on orientations. Thus, all components of the system are consistent with alignment except the outer disk; the origin of this misalignment is unclear.