Exoplanets & Exomoons

Identifying Atmospheres on Rocky Exoplanets Through Inferred High Albedo

By Keith Cowing
Press Release
astro-ph.EP
August 1, 2019
Filed under
Identifying Atmospheres on Rocky Exoplanets Through Inferred High Albedo
Exoplanet
NASA

The upcoming launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) means that we will soon have the capability to characterize the atmospheres of rocky exoplanets.

However, it is still unknown whether such planets orbiting close to M dwarf stars can retain their atmospheres, or whether high-energy irradiation from the star will strip the gaseous envelopes from these objects. We present a new method to detect an atmosphere on a synchronously rotating rocky exoplanet around a K/M dwarf, by using thermal emission during secondary eclipse to infer a high dayside albedo that could only be explained by bright clouds. Based on calculations for plausible surface conditions, we conclude that a high albedo could be unambiguously interpreted as a signal of an atmosphere for planets with substellar temperatures of Tsub= 410-1250 K. This range corresponds to equilibrium temperatures of Teq= 300-880 K. We compare the inferred albedos of eight possible planet surface compositions to cloud albedo calculations.

We determine that a layer of clouds with optical depths greater than τ=0.01-5, would have high enough albedos to be distinguishable from a bare rock surface. This method of detecting an atmosphere on a rocky planet is complementary to existing methods for detecting atmospheres, because it provides a way to detect atmospheres with pressures below 1 bar (e.g. Mars), which are too tenuous to transport significant heat but thick enough to host high-albedo clouds.

Megan Mansfield, Edwin S. Kite, Renyu Hu, Daniel D. B. Koll, Matej Malik, Jacob L. Bean, Eliza. M.-R. Kempton
(Submitted on 30 Jul 2019)

Comments: Submitted to ApJ. Also see these three companion papers: 1. Koll et al (submitted), “Identifying Candidate Atmospheres on Rocky M Dwarf Planets Via Eclipse Photometry”, 2. Malik et al (submitted), “Analyzing Atmospheric Temperature Profiles and Spectra of M dwarf Rocky Planets”, and 3. Koll (submitted) “A Scaling Theory for Atmospheric Heat Redistribution on Rocky Exoplanets”
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:1907.13150 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:1907.13150v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Megan Mansfield
[v1] Tue, 30 Jul 2019 18:00:36 UTC (881 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.13150
Astrobiology

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻