Discovery of a Jupiter/Saturn Analog with Gravitational Microlensing

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of a multi-planet system via gravitational microlensing that closely resembles our solar system's Jupiter and Saturn, indicating such analogs might be common.

Contribution

First detection of a Jupiter/Saturn-like planetary system using gravitational microlensing, expanding understanding of solar system analog prevalence.

Findings

Discovered a two-planet system with properties similar to Jupiter and Saturn.

Demonstrated microlensing's unique capability to detect such systems.

Suggests solar system analogs may be more common than previously thought.

Abstract

Searches for extrasolar planets have uncovered an astonishing diversity of planetary systems, yet the frequency of solar system analogs remains unknown. The gravitational microlensing planet search method is potentially sensitive to multiple-planet systems containing analogs of all the solar system planets except Mercury. We report the detection of a multiple-planet system with microlensing. We identify two planets with masses of ~0.71 and ~0.27 times the mass of Jupiter and orbital separations of ~2.3 and ~4.6 astronomical units orbiting a primary star of mass ~0.50 solar masses at a distance of ~1.5 kiloparsecs. This system resembles a scaled version of our solar system in that the mass ratio, separation ratio, and equilibrium temperatures of the planets are similar to those of Jupiter and Saturn. These planets could not have been detected with other techniques; their discovery from only six confirmed microlensing planet detections suggests that solar system analogs may be common.