Due to stellar rotation, the observed radial velocity of a star varies during the transit of a planet across its surface, a phenomenon known as the Rossiter-McLaughlin (RM) effect. The amplitude of the RM effect is related to the radius of the planet
which, because of differential absorption in the planetary atmosphere, depends on wavelength. Therefore, the wavelength-dependent RM effect can be used to probe the planetary atmosphere. We measure for the first time the RM effect of the Earth transiting the Sun using a lunar eclipse observed with the ESO HARPS spectrograph. We analyze the observed RM effect at different wavelengths to obtain the transmission spectrum of the Earths atmosphere after the correction of the solar limb-darkening and the convective blueshift. The ozone Chappuis band absorption as well as the Rayleigh scattering features are clearly detectable with this technique. Our observation demonstrates that the RM effect can be an effective technique for exoplanet atmosphere characterization. Its particular asset is that photometric reference stars are not required, circumventing the principal challenge for transmission spectroscopy studies of exoplanet atmospheres using large ground-based telescopes.
The atmospheres of exoplanets are commonly studied by observing the transit of the planet passing in front of its parent star. The obscuration of part of the stellar disk during a transit will reveal aspects of its surface structure resulting from ge
neral centre-to-limb variations (CLVs). These become apparent when forming the ratio between the stellar light in and out of transit. These phenomena can be seen particularly clearly during the progress of a penumbral lunar eclipse, where the Earth transits the solar disk and masks different regions of the solar disk as the eclipse progresses. When inferring the properties of the planetary atmosphere, it is essential that this effect originating at the star is properly accounted for. Using the data observed from the 2014-April-15 lunar eclipse with the ESPaDOnS spectrograph mounted on the Canada France Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), we have obtained for the first time a time sequence of the penumbral spectra. These penumbral spectra enable us to study the centre-to-limb variations of solar Fraunhofer lines when the Earth is transiting Sun. The Na i and Ca ii absorption features reported from previous lunar eclipse observations are demonstrated to be CLV features, which dominate the corresponding line profiles and mask possible planetary signal. Detecting atmospheric species in exoplanets via transit spectroscopy must account for the CLV effect.
With the rapid developments in the exoplanet field, more and more terrestrial exoplanets are being detected. Characterising their atmospheres using transit observations will become a key datum in the quest for detecting an Earth-like exoplanet. The a
tmospheric transmission spectrum of our Earth will be an ideal template for comparison with future exo-Earth candidates. By observing a lunar eclipse, which offers a similar configuration to that of an exoplanet transit, we have obtained a high resolution and high signal-to-noise ratio transmission spectrum of the Earths atmosphere. This observation was performed with the High Resolution Spectrograph at Xinglong Station, China during the total lunar eclipse in December 2011. We compare the observed transmission spectrum with our atmospheric model, and determine the characteristics of the various atmospheric species in detail. In the transmission spectrum, O2, O3, O2-O2, NO2 and H2O are detected, and their column densities are measured and compared with the satellites data. The visible Chappuis band of ozone produces the most prominent absorption feature, which suggests that ozone is a promising molecule for the future exo-Earth characterization. The individual O2 lines are resolved and O2 isotopes are clearly detected. Our new observations do not confirm the absorption features of Ca II or Na I which have been reported in previous lunar eclipse observations. However, features in these and some other strong Fraunhofer line positions do occur in the observed spectrum. We propose that these are due to a Raman-scattered component in the forward-scattered sunlight appearing in the lunar umbral spectrum. Water vapour absorption is found to be rather weak in our spectrum because the atmosphere we probed is relatively dry, which prompts us to discuss the detectability of water vapour in Earth-like exoplanet atmospheres.
[abridged] From a sample of Ly-alpha emitters in the GOODS-S field with uncontaminated photometry and optical (red) spectroscopy, we select a spatially compact object at a redshift of 5.563 (Ly-alpha) that shows a second emission line, identified as
N IV] 1486 A. The SED is modelled in a way that accounts for both the N IV] line emission and the photometry in a self-consistent way. The photoionization code CLOUDY is used to calculate a range of nebular models as a function of stellar ionizing source temperature, ionization parameter, density and nebular metallicity. We compare the theoretical and observed magnitudes and search for the model parameters that also reproduce the observed N IV] luminosity and equivalent width. A nebular model with a hot blackbody ionizing source of around 100 kK and a nebular metallicity of ~5% of solar is able to fit the observed SED and, in particular, explain the large apparent Balmer break which is inferred from the pure stellar population model fitting conventionally applied to multi-band photometric observations. In our model, an apparent spectral break is produced by strong [O III] 4959, 5007 A emission falling in one of the IR bands (IRAC1 in this case). A lower limit on the total baryonic mass of a model of this type is 3.2 x 10^8 Msun . It is argued that objects with Ly-alpha emission at high redshift that show an apparent Balmer break may have their SED dominated by nebular emission and so could possibly be identified with very young starbursting galaxies rather than massive evolved stellar populations. Detailed studies of these emission nebulae with large telescopes will provide a unique insight into very early chemical evolution.
