Exoplanet atmosphere. Thermal structure of an exoplanet atmosphere from phase-resolved emission spectroscopy

Kevin B Stevenson¹, Jean-Michel Désert², Michael R Line³, Jacob L Bean⁴, Jonathan J Fortney³, Adam P Showman⁵, Tiffany Kataria⁵, Laura Kreidberg⁴, Peter R McCullough⁶, Gregory W Henry⁷, David Charbonneau⁸, Adam Burrows⁹, Sara Seager¹⁰, Nikku Madhusudhan¹¹, Michael H Williamson⁷, Derek Homeier¹²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. NASA Sagan Fellow. kbs@uchicago.edu.
² CASA, Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado, 389-UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
³ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA.
⁴ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
⁵ Department of Planetary Sciences and Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
⁶ Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.
⁷ Center for Excellence in Information Systems, Tennessee State University, Nashville, TN 37209, USA.
⁸ Department of Astronomy, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
⁹ Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 54-1718, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
¹¹ Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 OHA, UK.
¹² Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon, UMR 5574, CNRS, Université de Lyon, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, 46 Allée d'Italie, F-69364 Lyon Cedex 07, France.

PMID: 25301972
DOI: 10.1126/science.1256758

Exoplanet atmosphere. Thermal structure of an exoplanet atmosphere from phase-resolved emission spectroscopy

Kevin B Stevenson et al. Science. 2014.

. 2014 Nov 14;346(6211):838-41.

doi: 10.1126/science.1256758. Epub 2014 Oct 9.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. NASA Sagan Fellow. kbs@uchicago.edu.
² CASA, Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado, 389-UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
³ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA.
⁴ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
⁵ Department of Planetary Sciences and Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
⁶ Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.
⁷ Center for Excellence in Information Systems, Tennessee State University, Nashville, TN 37209, USA.
⁸ Department of Astronomy, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
⁹ Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 54-1718, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
¹¹ Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 OHA, UK.
¹² Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon, UMR 5574, CNRS, Université de Lyon, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, 46 Allée d'Italie, F-69364 Lyon Cedex 07, France.

PMID: 25301972
DOI: 10.1126/science.1256758

Abstract

Exoplanets that orbit close to their host stars are much more highly irradiated than their solar system counterparts. Understanding the thermal structures and appearances of these planets requires investigating how their atmospheres respond to such extreme stellar forcing. We present spectroscopic thermal emission measurements as a function of orbital phase ("phase-curve observations") for the highly irradiated exoplanet WASP-43b spanning three full planet rotations using the Hubble Space Telescope. With these data, we construct a map of the planet's atmospheric thermal structure, from which we find large day-night temperature variations at all measured altitudes and a monotonically decreasing temperature with pressure at all longitudes. We also derive a Bond albedo of 0.18(-0.12)(+0.07) and an altitude dependence in the hot-spot offset relative to the substellar point.

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Exoplanet atmosphere. Thermal structure of an exoplanet atmosphere from phase-resolved emission spectroscopy

Affiliations

Exoplanet atmosphere. Thermal structure of an exoplanet atmosphere from phase-resolved emission spectroscopy

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

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LinkOut - more resources

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