by Anthony Ayiomamitis
The light curve for exoplanet WASP-12b in Auriga depicted above is one of the latest (and largest) transitting exoplanets, having being announced in Dec/2008, and represents the twelventh discovery by the WASP (Wide Angle Search for Planets) team. WASP-12b is characterized with a mass 1.41 times that of Jupiter while its radius is equivalent to 1.79 Jupiter radii, thus making this exoplanet the largest discovery at the time. What really sets WASP-12b apart is the fact that models suggest a surface temperature of 2516° Kelvin and which makes it the hottest exoplanet discovery so far owing to a very brief orbital period of 1.09 days (the shortest orbital period yet detected). WASP-12b requires 175.7 minutes to transit its parent star at a depth of 15.0 mmag or 1.50%. The parent star, 2MASS J063032.79+294020.4, is an F9V star estimated to have a mass of 1.35 solar masses, a radius equivalent to 1.57 solar radii, a temperature of 6,300° K and to lie at a distance of 871 light-years away with a visual magnitude of 11.69. Further details regarding WASP-12 and WASP-12b are available in the paper published by the discovery team led by Hebb et al here.
Due to the proximity of WASP-12b to its host star, namely 2% that of earth's distance from the Sun, the life expectancy of WASP-12b is approximately 10 million years owing to the fact WASP-12 continually strips away WASP-12b's atmosphere and the host star will eventually devour the exoplanet.
The C- and K-stars used for the purposes of the differential photometry measurements depicted above were GSC 1891:324 (mag 11.3) and GSC 1891:876 (mag 11.7) respectively.
Technical Details:
Date: Jan 14-15, 2011 @ 21:00:00 - 01:46:50 UT+2
Location: Athens, Greece (38.2997° N, 23.7430° E)
Equipment: AP 160 f/7.5 Starfire EDF, AP 1200GTO GEM, SBIG ST-10XME, SBIG CFW-10, SBIG Lum filter
Integrations: Lum : 180 x 90 sec, Dark : 015 x 90 sec, Flat : ~24,800 ADU, Binning : 2x2, CCD @ -25.0° C
Further details: http://www.perseus.gr/Astro-Photometry-WASP-12-20110114.htm