Distinguishing Oceans of Water from Magma on Mini-Neptune K2-18b
| Autor: | Oliver Shorttle, Sean Jordan, Harrison Nicholls, Tim Lichtenberg, Dan J. Bower |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2024 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol 962, Iss 1, p L8 (2024) |
| Druh dokumentu: | article |
| ISSN: | 2041-8213 2041-8205 |
| DOI: | 10.3847/2041-8213/ad206e |
| Popis: | Mildly irradiated mini-Neptunes have densities potentially consistent with them hosting substantial liquid-water oceans (“Hycean” planets). The presence of CO _2 and simultaneous absence of ammonia (NH _3 ) in their atmospheres has been proposed as a fingerprint of such worlds. JWST observations of K2-18b, the archetypal Hycean, have found the presence of CO _2 and the depletion of NH _3 to 4 μ m region, where CO _2 and CO features dominate: magma ocean models suggest a systematically lower CO _2 /CO ratio than estimated from free-chemistry retrieval, indicating that deeper observations of this spectral region may be able to distinguish between oceans of liquid water and magma on mini-Neptunes. |
| Databáze: | Directory of Open Access Journals |
| Externí odkaz: |
|