About the use of this catalogue

update: 29 January 2015

  • Purpose
    This catalogue is a working tool providing all the latest detections and data announced by professional astronomers, useful to facilitate progress in exoplanetology. Given the heterogeneity of observational papers, a uniform catalogue (with uniform degree of credibility of planets) is impossible. Therefore, ultimately, researchers willing to make a quantitative, scientific, use of the catalogue can make their own judgement on the likelihood of data and detections.

    Publication describing the catalogue

  • Criteria for inclusion in the catalogue
    • Physical criteria
      The basic criterion is the mass limit: 60 Jupiter mass.

      The former standard limits were13 Jupiter mass, based on the deuterium burning limit, and 30 Jupitter mass, based on formation scenario. However, the mass-density-radius distribution (Hatzes & Rauer, 2015) shows a clear difference between giant planets and stars at 60 Jupier mass.

      An additional difficulty comes from the uncertainty in the mass value. We therefore allow for a 1 sigma uncertainty and chose 60 Mjup + 1 sigma as an upper mass limit.

      We thus finally include planets with masses < 60 Jup up to 1 sigma
    • Confidence criteria
      Are included planet detections published or submitted to professional journals or announced by professional astronomers in professional conferences.
    • Categories
       There are 4 categories of planets, Confirmed, Candidate, Retracted and Controversial.
      A planet is considered as Confirmed if it is claimed unambiguously in an accepted paper or a professional conference.
  • Data
    • Planet parameters :
                       Mass (MJup/MEarth) : mass of the planet
                       soon coming Msini (MJup/MEarth) : minimum mass of the planet due to inclination effect
                       Radius (RJup/Rearth) : radius of the planet
                       Period (day) : orbital period of the planet
                       a (AU) : semi-major axis of the planet orbit
                       e : eccentrity of the planet orbit from 0, circular orbit, to almost 1, very elongated orbit
                       i (deg) : inclination of planet orbit, angle between the planet orbit and the sky plane
                       Ang. dist.(arcsec) : formal star-planet angular separation given by a/Distance
                       Discovery : year of discovery at the time of acceptance of a paper
                       Update : date of the update of data
                       ω (deg) : periapse longitude : angle between the periapse and the line nodes in the orbit plane
                       Tperi (JD) : time of passage at the periapse for eccentric orbits
                       Tconj(JD) : time of the star-planet upper conjunction
                       T0 (JD) : time of passage at the center of the transit light curve for the primary transit
                       T0-sec (JD) : time of passage at the center of the transit light curve for the secondary transit
                       λ Ang. (deg) :  sky-projected angle between the planetary orbital spin and the stellar rotational spin (Rossiter-McLaughlin anomaly).
                       Impact Param b (%) : minimum, in stellar radius units, of distance of the planet to the stellar center for transiting planets
                       TVR (JD) : time of zero, increasing, radial velocity (i.e. when the planet moves toward the observer) for circular orbits
                       K (m/s) :semi-amplitude of the radial velocity curve
                       Tcalc (K) :planet temperature as calculated by authors, based on a planet model
                       Tmeas (K) : planet temperature as measured by authors
                       Hot pt (deg) : longitude of the planet hottest point
                       Ag : Albedo
                       Log(g) : Surface gravity
                       Disc./Det Method : Methods of discovery/detection of the planet (RV, transit, TTV, lensing, astrometry, imaging. The first method is the discovery one.
                       Mass Meas method : Method of measurement of the planet mass (RV, astrometry, planet model for direct imaging)
                       Radius Meas method : Method of measurement of the planet radius (transit,
                       planet model for direct imaging)
                       Alternate names : alternatives names of the same planet
                       Molecules : Species detected in the planet

                       Number of planets in the system :
                      
    • Stellar data
      Stellar data (positions, distances, V mag, mass, metallicities etc) are taken from Simbad or from professional papers on exoplanets.
      • Stellar parameters :
                Star name :
                α2000 (hh :mm :ss) : Right Ascension
                δ2000 (hh :mm :ss) : Declination
                mV : apparent magnitude in the V band
                mI : apparent magnitude in the I band
                mJ : apparent magnitude in the J band
                mH : apparent magnitude in the H band
                mK : apparent magnitude in the K band
                Distance (pc) : distance of the star to the observer
                Metallicity : decimal logarithm of the massive elements (« metals ») to hydrogen ratio in solar units  (i.e. Log [(metals/H)star/(metals/H)Sun] )
                Mass (Msun) : star mas in solar units
                Radius (Rsun) : star radius in solar units
                Sp. Type : stellar spectral type
                Age (Gy) : stellar age
                Teff : effective stellar temperature 
                Detected disc :  (direct imaging or IR excess) disc detected
                Magnetic field (Yes/No) : stellar magnetic field detected
    • Errors
      When a value is known only by its maximum or minimum its prefix is « < » or « > ». e.g. : < 89.9 or > 0.067.
  • Planet names
    For single planetary companions to a host star, the name is generally NNN b where NNN is the parent star name. When NNN is not taken from a standard star catalogue (e.g. HD, HIP, 2MASS, …), NNN is the name given by the discoverers (e.g. CoRoT, Kepler, …).
    For multi-planet systems, the planet names are NNN x where x = b, c, d, etc refers to the chronological order of discovery of the planet.
    Exceptions are possible, like TrES-1 or planets detected by microlensing.
    For "free floating" planets, the name is the name given by the discoverers.
  • Functionalities
    Are provided, with different on-line filters:
    • Histogrammes for planet and stellar characteristics
    • Correlation diagrammes between characteristics

Acknowledgements

If the exoplanet.eu data and tools were helpful for your research work, the following acknowledgment would be appreciated :

"This research has made use of data obtained from or tools provided by the portal exoplanet.eu of The Extrasolar
Planets Encyclopaedia."

 

The functionalities offered would not have been possible without the technical help of the team.