The Astronomical Journal (Jan 2024)

An Earth-sized Planet on the Verge of Tidal Disruption

  • Fei Dai,
  • Andrew W. Howard,
  • Samuel Halverson,
  • Jaume Orell-Miquel,
  • Enric Pallé,
  • Howard Isaacson,
  • Benjamin Fulton,
  • Ellen M. Price,
  • Mykhaylo Plotnykov,
  • Leslie A. Rogers,
  • Diana Valencia,
  • Kimberly Paragas,
  • Michael Greklek-McKeon,
  • Jonathan Gomez Barrientos,
  • Heather A. Knutson,
  • Erik A. Petigura,
  • Lauren M. Weiss,
  • Rena Lee,
  • Casey L. Brinkman,
  • Daniel Huber,
  • Gumundur Stefánsson,
  • Kento Masuda,
  • Steven Giacalone,
  • Cicero X. Lu,
  • Edwin S. Kite,
  • Renyu Hu,
  • Eric Gaidos,
  • Michael Zhang,
  • Ryan A. Rubenzahl,
  • Joshua N. Winn,
  • Te Han,
  • Corey Beard,
  • Rae Holcomb,
  • Aaron Householder,
  • Gregory J. Gilbert,
  • Jack Lubin,
  • J. M. Joel Ong,
  • Alex S. Polanski,
  • Nicholas Saunders,
  • Judah Van Zandt,
  • Samuel W. Yee,
  • Jingwen Zhang,
  • Jon Zink,
  • Bradford Holden,
  • Ashley Baker,
  • Max Brodheim,
  • Ian J. M. Crossfield,
  • William Deich,
  • Jerry Edelstein,
  • Steven R. Gibson,
  • Grant M. Hill,
  • Sharon R Jelinsky,
  • Marc Kassis,
  • Russ R. Laher,
  • Kyle Lanclos,
  • Scott Lilley,
  • Joel N. Payne,
  • Kodi Rider,
  • Paul Robertson,
  • Arpita Roy,
  • Christian Schwab,
  • Abby P. Shaum,
  • Martin M. Sirk,
  • Chris Smith,
  • Adam Vandenberg,
  • Josh Walawender,
  • Sharon X. Wang,
  • Shin-Ywan (Cindy) Wang,
  • Edward Wishnow,
  • Jason T. Wright,
  • Sherry Yeh,
  • José A. Caballero,
  • Juan C. Morales,
  • Felipe Murgas,
  • Evangelos Nagel,
  • Ansgar Reiners,
  • Andreas Schweitzer,
  • Hugo M. Tabernero,
  • Mathias Zechmeister,
  • Alton Spencer,
  • David R. Ciardi,
  • Catherine A. Clark,
  • Michael B. Lund,
  • Douglas A. Caldwell,
  • Karen A. Collins,
  • Richard P. Schwarz,
  • Khalid Barkaoui,
  • Cristilyn Watkins,
  • Avi Shporer,
  • Norio Narita,
  • Akihiko Fukui,
  • Gregor Srdoc,
  • David W. Latham,
  • Jon M. Jenkins,
  • George R. Ricker,
  • Sara Seager,
  • Roland Vanderspek

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ad5a7d
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 168, no. 3
p. 101

Abstract

Read online

TOI-6255 b (GJ 4256) is an Earth-sized planet (1.079 ± 0.065 R _⊕ ) with an orbital period of only 5.7 hr. With the newly commissioned Keck Planet Finder and CARMENES spectrographs, we determine the planet’s mass to be 1.44 ± 0.14 M _⊕ . The planet is just outside the Roche limit, with P _orb / P _Roche = 1.13 ± 0.10. The strong tidal force likely deforms the planet into a triaxial ellipsoid with a long axis that is ∼10% longer than the short axis. Assuming a reduced stellar tidal quality factor ${Q}_{\star }^{{\prime} }\approx {10}^{7}$ , we predict that tidal orbital decay will cause TOI-6255 to reach the Roche limit in roughly 400 Myr. Such tidal disruptions may produce the possible signatures of planet engulfment that have been seen on stars with anomalously high refractory elemental abundances compared to their conatal binary companions. TOI-6255 b is also a favorable target for searching for star–planet magnetic interactions, which might cause interior melting and hasten orbital decay. TOI-6255 b is a top target (with an Emission Spectroscopy Metric of about 24) for phase-curve observations with the James Webb Space Telescope.

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