• DOI:10.1126/science.1178312
• Corpus ID: 206522122

Kepler’s Optical Phase Curve of the Exoplanet HAT-P-7b

@article{Borucki2009KeplersOP,
  title={Kepler’s Optical Phase Curve of the Exoplanet HAT-P-7b},
  author={William J. Borucki and David G. Koch and Jon M. Jenkins and Dimitar D. Sasselov and Ronald L. Gilliland and Natalie M. Batalha and David W. Latham and Douglas A. Caldwell and Gibor Basri and Timothy M. Brown and J. Christensen-Dalsgaard and William D. Cochran and E. K. Devore and Edward T. Dunham and Andrea K. Dupree and Thomas Gautier and John Charles Geary and Andrew P. Gould and Steve B. Howell and Hans Kjeldsen and Jack J. Lissauer and Geoffrey W. Marcy and S{\o}ren Meibom and David R. Morrison and Jill Tarter},
  journal={Science},
  year={2009},
  volume={325},
  pages={709 - 709}
}

• W. Borucki, D. Koch, +22 authors J. Tarter
• Published 7 August 2009
• Physics, Geology
• Science

The Kepler mission is performing at the level required to detect Earth-size planets orbiting solar-type stars. Ten days of photometric data were obtained during the commissioning phase of the Kepler mission, including data for the previously known giant transiting exoplanet HAT-P-7b. The data for HAT-P-7b show a smooth rise and fall of light from the planet as it orbits its star, punctuated by a drop of 130 ± 11 parts per million in flux when the planet passes behind its star. We interpret this as the phase variation of the dayside thermal emission plus reflected light from the planet as it orbits its star and is occulted. The depth of the occultation is similar in photometric precision to the detection of a transiting Earth-size planet for which the mission was designed.