A hot-Jupiter progenitor on a super-eccentric retrograde orbit

Arvind F Gupta; Sarah C Millholland; Haedam Im; Jiayin Dong; Jonathan M Jackson; Ilaria Carleo; Jessica Libby-Roberts; Megan Delamer; Mark R Giovinazzi; Andrea S J Lin; Shubham Kanodia; Xian-Yu Wang; Keivan Stassun; Thomas Masseron; Diana Dragomir; Suvrath Mahadevan; Jason Wright; Jaime A Alvarado-Montes; Chad Bender; Cullen H Blake; Douglas Caldwell; Caleb I Cañas; William D Cochran; Paul Dalba; Mark E Everett; Pipa Fernandez; Eli Golub; Bruno Guillet; Samuel Halverson; Leslie Hebb; Jesus Higuera; Chelsea X Huang; Jessica Klusmeyer; Rachel Knight; Liouba Leroux; Sarah E Logsdon; Margaret Loose; Michael W McElwain; Andrew Monson; Joe P Ninan; Grzegorz Nowak; Enric Palle; Yatrik Patel; Joshua Pepper; Michael Primm; Jayadev Rajagopal; Paul Robertson; Arpita Roy; Donald P Schneider; Christian Schwab; Heidi Schweiker; Lauren Sgro; Masao Shimizu; Georges Simard; Guðmundur Stefánsson; Daniel J Stevens; Steven Villanueva; John Wisniewski; Stefan Will; Carl Ziegler

doi:10.1038/s41586-024-07688-3

A hot-Jupiter progenitor on a super-eccentric retrograde orbit

Nature. 2024 Aug;632(8023):50-54. doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07688-3. Epub 2024 Jul 17.

Authors

Arvind F Gupta^{1

2

3}, Sarah C Millholland^{4

5}, Haedam Im^{4

5}, Jiayin Dong⁶, Jonathan M Jackson⁷, Ilaria Carleo^{8

9}, Jessica Libby-Roberts^{10

11}, Megan Delamer^{10

11}, Mark R Giovinazzi¹², Andrea S J Lin^{10

11}, Shubham Kanodia¹³, Xian-Yu Wang¹⁴, Keivan Stassun¹⁵, Thomas Masseron^{8

9}, Diana Dragomir¹⁶, Suvrath Mahadevan^{10

11}, Jason Wright^{10

11

17}, Jaime A Alvarado-Montes^{18

19}, Chad Bender²⁰, Cullen H Blake¹², Douglas Caldwell²¹, Caleb I Cañas²², William D Cochran^{23

24}, Paul Dalba²⁵, Mark E Everett²⁶, Pipa Fernandez²⁶, Eli Golub²⁶, Bruno Guillet, Samuel Halverson²⁷, Leslie Hebb^{28

29}, Jesus Higuera²⁶, Chelsea X Huang³⁰, Jessica Klusmeyer²⁶, Rachel Knight, Liouba Leroux, Sarah E Logsdon²⁶, Margaret Loose, Michael W McElwain²², Andrew Monson²⁰, Joe P Ninan³¹, Grzegorz Nowak^{8

9

32}, Enric Palle^{8

9}, Yatrik Patel²⁶, Joshua Pepper³³, Michael Primm, Jayadev Rajagopal²⁶, Paul Robertson³⁴, Arpita Roy³⁵, Donald P Schneider^{10

11}, Christian Schwab^{18

19}, Heidi Schweiker²⁶, Lauren Sgro²¹, Masao Shimizu, Georges Simard, Guðmundur Stefánsson^{36

37}, Daniel J Stevens³⁸, Steven Villanueva²², John Wisniewski³⁹, Stefan Will, Carl Ziegler⁴⁰

Affiliations

¹ U.S. National Science Foundation National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NSF NOIRLab), Tucson, AZ, USA. [email protected].
² Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA. [email protected].
³ Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA. [email protected].
⁴ Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁵ Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁶ Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute, New York, NY, USA.
⁷ Van Vleck Observatory, Astronomy Department, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, USA.
⁸ Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain.
⁹ Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain.
¹⁰ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
¹¹ Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
¹² Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
¹³ Earth and Planets Laboratory, Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington DC, USA.
¹⁴ Department of Astronomy, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, USA.
¹⁵ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
¹⁶ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA.
¹⁷ Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence Center, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
¹⁸ School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde, New South Wales, Australia.
¹⁹ The Macquarie University Astrophysics and Space Technologies Research Centre, Macquarie University, North Ryde, New South Wales, Australia.
²⁰ Department of Astronomy and Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
²¹ Carl Sagan Center, SETI Institute, Mountain View, CA, USA.
²² NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA.
²³ Center for Planetary Systems Habitability, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.
²⁴ McDonald Observatory, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.
²⁵ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA.
²⁶ U.S. National Science Foundation National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NSF NOIRLab), Tucson, AZ, USA.
²⁷ Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
²⁸ Physics Department, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY, USA.
²⁹ Department of Astronomy, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
³⁰ Centre for Astrophysics, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia.
³¹ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India.
³² Institute of Astronomy, Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Informatics, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland.
³³ Department of Physics, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA.
³⁴ Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA.
³⁵ Schmidt Sciences, New York, NY, USA.
³⁶ Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
³⁷ Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
³⁸ Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth, MN, USA.
³⁹ NASA Headquarters, Washington DC, USA.
⁴⁰ Department of Physics, Engineering & Astronomy, Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, TX, USA.

Abstract

Giant exoplanets orbiting close to their host stars are unlikely to have formed in their present configurations¹. These 'hot Jupiter' planets are instead thought to have migrated inward from beyond the ice line and several viable migration channels have been proposed, including eccentricity excitation through angular-momentum exchange with a third body followed by tidally driven orbital circularization^2,3. The discovery of the extremely eccentric (e = 0.93) giant exoplanet HD 80606 b (ref. ⁴) provided observational evidence that hot Jupiters may have formed through this high-eccentricity tidal-migration pathway⁵. However, no similar hot-Jupiter progenitors have been found and simulations predict that one factor affecting the efficacy of this mechanism is exoplanet mass, as low-mass planets are more likely to be tidally disrupted during periastron passage^6-8. Here we present spectroscopic and photometric observations of TIC 241249530 b, a high-mass, transiting warm Jupiter with an extreme orbital eccentricity of e = 0.94. The orbit of TIC 241249530 b is consistent with a history of eccentricity oscillations and a future tidal circularization trajectory. Our analysis of the mass and eccentricity distributions of the transiting-warm-Jupiter population further reveals a correlation between high mass and high eccentricity.