Kavli Affiliate: George Ricker
| First 5 Authors: Te Han, Te Han, , ,
| Summary:
The radius of a planet is a fundamental parameter that probes its composition
and habitability. Precise radius measurements are typically derived from the
fraction of starlight blocked when a planet transits its host star. The
wide-field Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered hundreds
of new exoplanets, but its low angular resolution means that the light from a
star hosting a transiting exoplanet can be blended with the light from
background stars. If not fully corrected, this extra light can dilute the
transit signal and result in a smaller measured planet radius. In a study of
hundreds of TESS planet discoveries using deblended light curves from our
validated methodology, we show that systematically incorrect planet radii are
common in the literature: studies using various public TESS photometry
pipelines have underestimated the planet radius by a weighted median of $6.1%
pm 0.3%$, leading to a $sim20%$ overestimation of planet density. The
widespread presence of these biases in the literature has profoundly shaped-and
potentially misrepresented-our understanding of the exoplanet population.
Addressing these biases will refine the exoplanet mass-radius relation, reshape
our understanding of exoplanet atmospheric and bulk composition, and
potentially inform prevailing planet formation theories.
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