2025/01/17 by David Kipping, Kipping, David, Diana Solano-Oropeza +9
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) #FOS: Physical sciences #Spacecraft Dynamics and Control #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2501.10571
openalex publication_date 2025/01/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Recent advances have enabled the discovery of a population of potentially Earth-like planets, yet their orbital eccentricity, which governs their climate and provides clues about their origin and dynamical history, is still largely unconstrained. We identify a sample of 17 transiting exoplanets around late-type stars with similar radii and irradiation to that of Earth and use the "photoeccentric effect" - which exploits transit durations - to infer their eccentricity distribution via hierarchical Bayesian modelling. Our analysis establishes that these worlds further resemble Earth in that their eccentricities are nearly circular (mean eccentricity =0.060-0.028+0.040 and ≤0.15), with the exception of one outlier of moderate eccentricity. The results hint at a subset population of dynamically warmer Earths, but this requires a larger sample to statistically confirm. The planets in our sample are thus largely subject to minimal eccentricity-induced seasonal variability and are consistent with emerging via smooth disk migration rather than violent planet-planet scattering.