An ultrahot gas-giant exoplanet with a stratosphere

Autor: Hannah R. Wakeford, Roxana Lupu, David K. Sing, Gregory W. Henry, Mark S. Marley, Joanna K. Barstow, Mercedes Lopez-Morales, Alain Lecavelier des Etangs, David S. Amundsen, Ofer Cohen, Tiffany Kataria, Pascal Tremblin, Jorge Sanz-Forcada, Panayotis Lavvas, Avi Mandell, Lars A. Buchhave, Antonio García Muñoz, Gilda E. Ballester, Nikolay Nikolov, Heather Knutson, Lotfi Ben-Jaffel, Drake Deming, Nikole K. Lewis, Jayesh M. Goyal, Thomas M. Evans, David Ehrenreich, Vincent Bourrier
Přispěvatelé: University of Exeter, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), NASA-California Institute of Technology (CALTECH), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), University of Maryland [College Park], University of Maryland System, NASA Ames Research Center Cooperative for Research in Earth Science in Technology (ARC-CREST), NASA Ames Research Center (ARC), Columbia University [New York], NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), Lunar and Planetary Laboratory [Tucson] (LPL), University of Arizona, University College of London [London] (UCL), Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris (IAP), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Observatoire Astronomique de l'Université de Genève (ObsGE), Université de Genève = University of Geneva (UNIGE), Niels Bohr Institute [Copenhagen] (NBI), Faculty of Science [Copenhagen], University of Copenhagen = Københavns Universitet (UCPH)-University of Copenhagen = Københavns Universitet (UCPH), University of Massachusetts [Lowell] (UMass Lowell), University of Massachusetts System (UMASS), Technical University of Berlin / Technische Universität Berlin (TU), Tennessee State University, Caltech Department of Astronomy [Pasadena], California Institute of Technology (CALTECH), Groupe de spectrométrie moléculaire et atmosphérique (GSMA), Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne (URCA)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Space Telescope Science Institute (STSci), Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), Harvard University-Smithsonian Institution, Centro de Astrobiologia [Madrid] (CAB), Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA)-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas [Madrid] (CSIC), Maison de la Simulation (MDLS), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Bay Area Environmental Research Institute (BAER), ANR-12-BS05-0012,Exo-Atmos,Atmosphère et Evaporation des Exoplanètes(2012), European Project: 247060,EC:FP7:ERC,ERC-2009-AdG,PEPS(2010), European Project: 336792,EC:FP7:ERC,ERC-2013-StG,CREATES(2013), California Institute of Technology (CALTECH)-NASA, Université de Genève (UNIGE), University of Copenhagen = Københavns Universitet (KU)-University of Copenhagen = Københavns Universitet (KU), Technische Universität Berlin (TU), Smithsonian Institution-Harvard University [Cambridge], Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ), Harvard University [Cambridge]-Smithsonian Institution
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2017
Předmět:
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
Infrared
Gas giant
[PHYS.ASTR.EP]Physics [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]/Earth and Planetary Astrophysics [astro-ph.EP]
FOS: Physical sciences
01 natural sciences
Atmosphere
0103 physical sciences
[PHYS.MECA.MEFL]Physics [physics]/Mechanics [physics]/Fluid mechanics [physics.class-ph]
010303 astronomy & astrophysics
Stratosphere
Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics
Physics::Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Discoveries of exoplanets
Physics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Multidisciplinary
Astronomy
[PHYS.ASTR.SR]Physics [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]/Solar and Stellar Astrophysics [astro-ph.SR]
Exoplanet
13. Climate action
Astrophysics::Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Kepler-62e
Kepler-62c
Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Zdroj: Nature
Nature, 2017, 548 (7665), pp.58-61. ⟨10.1038/nature23266⟩
Nature, Nature Publishing Group, 2017, 548 (7665), pp.58-61. ⟨10.1038/nature23266⟩
ISSN: 0028-0836
1476-4687
1476-4679
DOI: 10.1038/nature23266⟩
Popis: Infrared radiation emitted from a planet contains information about the chemical composition and vertical temperature profile of its atmosphere. If upper layers are cooler than lower layers, molecular gases will produce absorption features in the planetary thermal spectrum. Conversely, if there is a stratosphere - where temperature increases with altitude - these molecular features will be observed in emission. It has been suggested that stratospheres could form in highly irradiated exoplanets, but the extent to which this occurs is unresolved both theoretically and observationally. A previous claim for the presence of a stratosphere remains open to question, owing to the challenges posed by the highly variable host star and the low spectral resolution of the measurements. Here we report a near-infrared thermal spectrum for the ultrahot gas giant WASP-121b, which has an equilibrium temperature of approximately 2,500 kelvin. Water is resolved in emission, providing a detection of an exoplanet stratosphere at 5-sigma confidence. These observations imply that a substantial fraction of incident stellar radiation is retained at high altitudes in the atmosphere, possibly by absorbing chemical species such as gaseous vanadium oxide and titanium oxide.
This is the authors' version of the manuscript. 23 pages, 9 figures, 4 tables
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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