The MEarth team also used
radial velocity data from a larger telescope to detect the planet's gravitational pull on its host star, which yielded a mass estimate.
Hints of this massive substellar object were first detected in high -
precision radial velocity data gathered as much as a decade ago from Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton in Califonia.
Initial
optical radial velocity data from McDonald Observatory confirmed that a planet might be present, and the team added photometry measurements from Lowell and five years of infrared observations from Hawaii, Kitt Peak and McDonald to rule out the possibility that the optical signal resulted from starspots or another masking phenomenon.
G.D., V.B., S.C.N., M.T.D., T.E., C.G., H.J. - C., D.H.K., A.F., J.G., A.I., J.F.K., M.M., K.M., N.N., T.E.O., P.A.R., G.S., D.C.S., R.R.Y., R.Z., B.J.F. and A.H. all provided photometric or
radial velocity data that were important for the interpretation of the system.
The planet mass (derived mostly from
the radial velocity data) is comparable, 3.47 ± 0.15 Jupiter masses in the KELT paper, and 3.69 ± 0.18 in ours.
Planet «c» or «2» - A residual drift in
the radial velocity data over several years suggest the presence of an even larger planet in an outer orbit, at about 3.73 AUs from 47 UMa (between the average orbital distances of Jupiter and the Main Asteroid Belt in the Solar System).
Planet «d» or «3» - Planetary candidate d (or 3) was derived by Bayesian analysis of 47 UMa's
radial velocity data.
Radial velocity data can be combined with transit measurements to yield precise planetary masses as well as densities of transiting planets and thereby limit the possible materials of which the planets are composed.