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Register a new userWater Vapour Absorption in the Clear Atmosphere of an exo-Neptune
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Transmission spectroscopy to date has detected atomic and molecular absorption in Jupiter-sized exoplanets, but intense efforts to measure molecular absorption in the atmospheres of smaller (Neptune-sized) planets during transits have revealed only featureless spectra. From this it was concluded that the majority of small, warm planets evolve to sustain high mean molecular weights, opaque clouds, or scattering hazes in their atmospheres, obscuring our ability to observe the composition of these atmospheres. Here we report observations of the transmission spectrum of HAT-P-11b (~4 Earth radii) from the optical to the infrared. We detected water vapour absorption at 1.4 micrometre wavelength. The amplitude of the water absorption (approximately 250 parts-per- million) indicates that the planetary atmosphere is predominantly clear down to ~1 mbar, and sufficiently hydrogen-rich to exhibit a large scale height. The spectrum is indicative of a planetary atmosphere with an upper limit of ~700 times the abundance of heavy elements relative to solar. This is in good agreement with the core accretion theory of planet formation, in which gas giant planets acquire their atmospheres by directly accreting hydrogen-rich gas from the protoplanetary nebulae onto a large rocky or icy core.
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GJ 3470b is a warm Neptune-size planet transiting a M dwarf star. Like the handful of other small exoplanets for which transmission spectroscopy has been obtained, GJ 3470b exhibits a flat spectrum in the near- and mid-infrared. Recently, a tentative detection of Rayleigh scattering in its atmosphere has been reported. This signal manifests itself as an observed increase of the planetary radius as a function of decreasing wavelength in the visible. We set out to verify this detection and observed several transits of this planet with the LCOGT network and the Kuiper telescope in four different bands (Sloan g, Sloan i, Harris B and Harris V). Our analysis reveals a strong Rayleigh scattering slope, thus confirming previous results. This makes GJ 3470b the smallest known exoplanet with a detection of Rayleigh scattering. We find that the most plausible scenario is a hydrogen/helium-dominated atmosphere covered by clouds which obscure absorption features in the infrared and hazes which give rise to scattering in the visible. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of exoplanet atmospheric characterization from the ground, even with meter-class telescopes.
In the Jovian atmosphere, the trace species are detected for the first time after the collision of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 near 44$^circ$S in July 1994. Most of these trace species are detected with spectroscopic millimeter/submillimeter observation. In the atmosphere of Jupiter, trace gases play an important role in atmospheric chemistry with heterogeneous and homogeneous chemical reactions, interaction with radiation, and phase transition. Here we present the first spectroscopic detection of the rotational emission line of water (H$_{2}$O) in the atmosphere of Jupiter at frequency $ u$ = 183.310 GHz with molecular transition J = 3$_{1,3}$$-$2$_{2,2}$ using Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA). The statistical column density of water emission line is N(H$_{2}$O)$sim$4$times$10$^{15}$ cm$^{-2}$. The rotational emission line of H$_{2}$O is found in the stratosphere of Jupiter with $geq$3$sigma$ statistical significance. The column density of H$_{2}$O corresponds to the fractional abundance relative to H$_{2}$ is f(H$_{2}$O)$sim$ 4$times$10$^{-9}$.
Non-rocky sub-jovian exoplanets in high irradiation environments are rare. LTT 9979b, also known as TESS Object of Interest (TOI) 193.01, is one of the few such planets discovered to date, and the first example of an ultra-hot Neptune. The planets bulk density indicates that it has a substantial atmosphere, so to investigate its atmospheric composition and shed further light on its origin, we obtained {it Spitzer} IRAC secondary eclipse observations of LTT 9979b at 3.6 and 4.5 $mu$m. We combined the {it Spitzer} observations with a measurement of the secondary eclipse in the {it TESS} bandpass. The resulting secondary eclipse spectrum strongly prefers a model that includes CO absorption over a blackbody spectrum, incidentally making LTT 9979b the first {it TESS} exoplanet (and the first ultra-hot Neptune) with evidence of a spectral feature in its atmosphere. We did not find evidence of a thermal inversion, at odds with expectations based on the atmospheres of similarly-irradiated hot Jupiters. We also report a nominal dayside brightness temperature of 2305 $pm$ 141 K (based on the 3.6 $mu$m secondary eclipse measurement), and we constrained the planets orbital eccentricity to $e < 0.01$ at the 99.7 % confidence level. Together with our analysis of LTT 9979bs thermal phase curves reported in a companion paper, our results set the stage for similar investigations of a larger sample of exoplanets discovered in the hot Neptune desert, investigations which are key to uncovering the origin of this population.
We present a transmission spectrum for the Neptune-size exoplanet HD 106315 c from optical to infrared wavelengths based on transit observations from the Hubble Space Telescope/Wide Field Camera 3, K2, and Spitzer. The spectrum shows tentative evidence for a water absorption feature in the $1.1 - 1.7mu$m wavelength range with a small amplitude of 30 ppm (corresponding to just $0.8 pm 0.04$ atmospheric scale heights). Based on an atmospheric retrieval analysis, the presence of water vapor is tentatively favored with a Bayes factor of 1.7 - 2.6 (depending on prior assumptions). The spectrum is most consistent with either enhanced metallicity, high altitude condensates, or both. Cloud-free solar composition atmospheres are ruled out at $>5sigma$ confidence. We compare the spectrum to grids of cloudy and hazy forward models and find that the spectrum is fit well by models with moderate cloud lofting or haze formation efficiency, over a wide range of metallicities ($1 - 100times$ solar). We combine the constraints on the envelope composition with an interior structure model and estimate that the core mass fraction is $gtrsim0.3$. With a bulk composition reminiscent of that of Neptune and an orbital distance of 0.15 AU, HD 106315 c hints that planets may form out of broadly similar material and arrive at vastly different orbits later in their evolution.
Stellar heating causes atmospheres of close-in exoplanets to expand and escape. These extended atmospheres are difficult to observe because their main spectral signature - neutral hydrogen at ultraviolet wavelengths - is strongly absorbed by interstellar medium. We report the detection of the near-infrared triplet of neutral helium in the transiting warm Neptune-mass exoplanet HAT-P-11b using ground-based, high-resolution observations. The helium feature is repeatable over two independent transits, with an average absorption depth of 1.08+/-0.05%. Interpreting absorption spectra with 3D simulations of the planets upper atmosphere suggests it extends beyond 5 planetary radii, with a large scale height and a helium mass loss rate =< 3x10^5 g/s. A net blue-shift of the absorption might be explained by high-altitude winds flowing at 3 km/s from day to night-side.
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