Another paper based on analysis done by citizen scientist contributors to the Planet Hunters program has been accepted by a scientific journal: Latest Science Paper Accepted for Publication: The First Kepler Seven Planet Candidate System and 13 Other Planet Candidates from the Kepler Archival Data – Planet Hunters
We at Planet Hunters are happy to announce the acceptance of the PHVI paper to the Astronomical Journal, in which 14 new planet candidates were discovered. All of these new planet candidates are located far from their host stars. In fact, seven of them lie in their host star’s habitable zone. Unfortunately, all of these planets are too large to be Earth-like.
Two of the new planet candidates are in multiple candidate systems. One of them, the new candidate orbiting KOI-351, is the seventh planet candidate orbiting its host star. Planet Hunters actually detected three new candidates around this star when KOI-351 was only known to have three candidates, showing how great the Planet Hunters can be in discovering multiple planet systems. The planets in KOI-351 also show strong gravitational interactions between the planets, which helps to confirm them as true planets. The gravity from some planets in the system causes other planets to transit before or after what we would otherwise expect, called transit timing variations. In fact, the second-to-last planet transited a full day after we expected it would. Others in the exoplanet field have been working for over a year to determine the masses of these planets.
The paper and contributors to the project: