Strategic Explorations of Exoplanets and Disks with Subaru

The Subaru Telescope at the Mauna Kea Observatory on Hawaii.

Strategic Explorations of Exoplanets and Disks with Subaru (SEEDS) is a multi-year survey that used the Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii in an effort to directly image extrasolar planets and protoplanetary/debris disks around several hundred nearby stars. Near-infrared imaging was carried out using the AO188 Adaptive Optics System and HiCIAO high-contrast imaging instrument. The survey is headquartered at National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) and led by Principal Investigator Motohide Tamura. The survey team includes over a hundred members from dozens of institutes around the world. Observations began in late October 2009, and finished in early January 2015. The goals of the survey are to address the following key issues in exoplanet∕disk science: (1) the detection and census of exoplanets in the outer circumstellar regions around stars, (2) the evolution of protoplanetary and debris disks including their morphological diversity, and (3) the link between exoplanets and circumstellar disks.

Results

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Kappa Andromedae b, the Super-Jupiter exoplanet of 12.8 Jupiter masses discovered as part of the SEEDS survey

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The confirmed brown dwarf GJ 758 B and the candidate GJ 758 C, which was later found to be a background star

• Direct imaging discovery of a cold Jovian exoplanet in orbit around the Sun-like star GJ 504
• Direct imaging discovery of a Super-Jupiter around the late B-Type Star Kappa Andromedae

• Discovery and characterization of GJ 758 B
• New high resolution imaging of the AB Aurigae system
• Detection of extended outer regions of the debris ring around HR 4796 A
• New reflected light imaging of the transitional disk gap around LkCa 15
• Explorations for outer massive bodies around the transiting planet system HAT-P-7
• Imaging discovery of the debris disk around HIP 79977
• First infrared images of the inner gap in the 2MASS J16042165-2130284 transitional disk.
• Direct imaging discovery of a giant inner gap in the protoplanetary disk around PDS 70
• Discovery of spiral structures in the transitional disk around SAO 206462
• Discovery of a stellar companion to the extrasolar planet system HAT-P-7
• Near-IR scattered light detection of the spiral-armed transitional disk of the star MWC 758
• Direct imaging of the UX Tau A pre-transitional disk revealing gap structures
• Scattered light imaging of the MWC 80 protoplanetary disk at a historic minimum of the near-IR excess
• High-contrast imaging discovery of architecture in the LkCa 15 transitional disk
• Submillimeter and near-infrared observation of the transitional disk around Sz 91
• First high resolution infrared images of circumstellar disk around SU Aur revealing tidal-like tails

See also

• Definition of 'Extrasolar planet'
• Direct imaging of extrasolar planets
• List of extrasolar planets
• List of planet types