The Pan-Pacific Planet Search. I. A Giant Planet Orbiting 7 CMa
Endl, Michael; Wittenmyer, Robert A.; Wang, Liang; O'Toole, S. J.; Tinney, C. G.; Johnson, John Asher
Australia, United States, China
Abstract
We introduce the Pan-Pacific Planet Search, a survey of 170 metal-rich Southern Hemisphere subgiants using the 3.9 m Anglo-Australian Telescope. We report the first discovery from this program, a giant planet orbiting 7 CMa (HD 47205) with a period of 763 ± 17 days, eccentricity e = 0.14 ± 0.06, and msin i = 2.6 ± 0.6 M Jup. The host star is a K giant with a mass of 1.5 ± 0.3 M ⊙ and metallicity [Fe/H] = 0.21 ± 0.10. The mass and period of 7 CMa b are typical of planets which have been found to orbit intermediate-mass stars (M * > 1.3 M ⊙). Hipparcos photometry shows this star to be stable to 0.0004 mag on the radial-velocity period, giving confidence that this signal can be attributed to reflex motion caused by an orbiting planet.