180 Transit and occultation times for WASP-12b

To date, WASP-12b is the only hot Jupiter reported to have a decaying orbit, at a rate of 29{+/-}2ms/yr. We analyzed data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) to verify that WASP-12b's orbit is indeed changing.

We find that the TESS transit and occultation data are consistent with a decaying orbit with an updated period of 1.091420090{+/-}0.000000041days and a decay rate of 32.53{+/-}1.62ms/yr. We find an orbital decay timescale of {tau}=P/|P|=2.90{+/-}0.14Myr. If the observed decay results from tidal dissipation, the modified tidal quality factor is Q_*_'=1.39{+/-}0.15x10^5^, which falls at the lower end of values derived for binary star systems and hot Jupiters.