Searching for GEMS: Confirmation of TOI-5573 b, a Cool, Saturn-like Planet Orbiting an M Dwarf

Abstract

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© 2025. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.

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Acknowledgement

C.I.C. acknowledges support from NASA Headquarters through an appointment to the NASA Postdoctoral Program at the Goddard Space Flight Center, administered by ORAU through a contract with NASA.

Z.L.D. would like to thank the generous support of the MIT Presidential Fellowship, the MIT Collamore-Rogers Fellowship, and the MIT Teaching Development Fellowship and to acknowledge that this material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under grant No. 1745302.

These findings stem from observations conducted using the Habitable-zone Planet Finder Spectrograph on the Hobby–Eberly Telescope (HET). We gratefully acknowledge support from various sources, including NSF grants AST-1006676, AST-1126413, AST-1310885, AST-1310875, AST-1910954, AST-1907622, AST-1909506, ATI 2009889, ATI-2009982, AST-2108512, AST-1907622, AST-2108801, AST-2108493, and the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NNA09DA76A), in our efforts to achieve precision radial velocities in the near-infrared (NIR). The HPF team is also appreciative of funding provided by the Heising–Simons Foundation through grant 2017-0494. Furthermore, we acknowledge the collaborative efforts of the University of Texas at Austin, the Pennsylvania State University, Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität München, and Georg-August Universität Gottingen in the Hobby–Eberly Telescope project. The HET is named in recognition of its principal benefactors, William P. Hobby and Robert E. Eberly. The HET collaboration extends its appreciation to the Texas Advanced Computing Center for its support and resources. We express gratitude to the Resident Astronomers and Telescope Operators at the HET for their adept execution of observations with HPF. Additionally, we acknowledge that the HET is situated on Indigenous land. Furthermore, we wish to recognize and pay our respects to the Carrizo and Comecrudo, Coahuiltecan, Caddo, Tonkawa, Comanche, Lipan Apache, Alabama-Coushatta, Kickapoo, Tigua Pueblo, and all the American Indian and Indigenous Peoples and communities who have inhabited or become part of these lands and territories in Texas, here on Turtle Island. We acknowledge the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin for providing high-performance computing, visualization, and storage resources that have contributed to the results reported within this paper.

The data presented in this work were acquired at the WIYN Observatory using telescope time allocated to NN-EXPLORE through a scientific partnership involving the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and NOIRLab. Funding support for this research was provided by a NASA WIYN PI Data Award, which is managed by the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute. The observations were conducted with NEID on the WIYN 3.5 m telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), under NSF’s NOIRLab, and were carried out under proposal 2023A-633546 (PI: S. Kanodia), managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the NSF. This work was performed for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, and sponsored by the United States Government under Prime Contract 80NM0018D0004 between Caltech and NASA. The WIYN Observatory is a collaborative effort involving the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Indiana University, NSF’s NOIRLab, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, University of California-Irvine, and the University of Missouri. We acknowledge the privilege of conducting astronomical research on Iolkam Du’ag (Kitt Peak), a mountain of special significance to the Tohono O’odham people. Several observations presented in this paper utilized the NN-EXPLORE Exoplanet and Stellar Speckle Imager (NESSI) under the proposal 2022B-936991. NESSI received funding from the NASA Exoplanet Exploration Program and the NASA Ames Research Center. Steve B. Howell, Nic Scott, Elliott P. Horch, and Emmett Quigley built NESSI at the Ames Research Center.

We utilized data from the Gaia mission³⁶ of European Space Agency (ESA), processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC³⁷ ). The DPAC’s funding is provided by national institutions, particularly those involved in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement. Additionally, we acknowledge support from NSF grant AST-1907622 for conducting precise photometric observations from the ground.

We express gratitude for the assistance provided by NSF grant AST-1907622 in conducting meticulous photometric observations from the ground.

This study has utilized the Exoplanet Follow-up Observation Program website,³⁸ managed by the California Institute of Technology under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as part of the Exoplanet Exploration Program.

This work was partially supported by funding from the Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds. The Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds and the Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence Center are supported by Penn State and its Eberly College of Science.

Additional Information

Based on observations obtained with the Hobby–Eberly Telescope (HET), which is a joint project of the University of Texas at Austin, the Pennsylvania State University, Ludwig-Maximillians-Universitaet Muenchen, and Georg-August Universitaet Goettingen. The HET is named in honor of its principal benefactors, William P. Hobby and Robert E. Eberly.