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. - 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.
- Physical criteria
- Data
- Planet data
Planet data are the latest data known. They are taken from:- Latest published papers or professional preprints and conferences
- First-hand updated data on professional websites. These presently are:
- Planet parameters :
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
- Stellar parameters :
- Errors
When a value is known only by its maximum or minimum its prefix is « < » or « > ». e.g. : < 89.9 or > 0.067.
- Planet data
- 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.