Since the discovery by K2 of two more transiting exoplanets orbiting WASP-47, plus a fourth planet at a much longer orbital period, this system has shot to the top of the priority lists. A team led by Fei Dai of MIT have thus pointed the 6.5-m Magellan/Clay telescope at WASP-47 to try to measure the radial-velocity signal, and hence the masses, of the two planets found by K2.

The figure shows the complex radial-velocity motion in a multiple-planet system. The blue curve is the radial-velocity motion caused by the 4.2-day-period hot-Jupiter WASP-47b, as originally found by the WASP project. The yellow curve is caused by the 0.79-day planet WASP-47e, the green curve by the 9-day planet WASP-47d, and the purple by the much-longer-period WASP-47c. The red line is then the sum of all the planets and the black dots are the measurements by Dai et al.

By fitting all of the data, Dai et al show that the innermost planet, WASP-47e, has a mass of 12 +/- 4 Earths, while the 9-day planet WASP-47c has a mass of 10 +/- 8 Earths. Both results are in line with previous mass estimates from transit-timing variations, which helps to validate mass measurements by both the RV and the TTV techniques.