Oral Presentation

Super-Earth or mini-Neptune? Understanding the nature of planets discovered by the K2 mission

Author(s): Rob Wittenmyer (USQ), Fei Dai (Princeton), Paul Butler (Carnegie)

Presenter: Rob Wittenmyer (University of Southern Queensland)

Sub-Neptune-size planets, or "super-Earths" are extremely common, with thousands discovered to transit by the NASA Kepler Mission. These types of planets are the most common in the galaxy, but no examples exist in our Solar system. Hence, the transition between rocky (Earth-like) and icy (Neptune-like) worlds is poorly understood. While transits provide estimates of planetary radii, little is yet known about the masses, and hence the interior structure, of these planets. Both are critical for understanding their formation. I describe the results of a collaborative effort using the Planet Finding Spectrometer on the 6.5m Magellan Clay telescope to determine the masses of transiting super-Earths from the K2 mission.