Clouds On Partial Atmospheres Of Lava Planets And Where To Find Them
With dayside temperatures hot enough to sustain a magma ocean and a silicate atmosphere, lava planets are the best targets to study the atmosphere of a rocky world.
In the absence of nightside heating, the entire atmosphere collapses near the day-night terminator, so condensation seems inevitable, but the impact of clouds on radiative transfer, dynamics, and observables has not yet been studied in the non-global atmospheric regime. Therefore, we simulate cloud formation and determine which lava planets should be most affected by clouds.
We find that despite the scattering of visible light by clouds, heat advection compensates for the cooling effect of clouds in the atmosphere. On the other hand, surface temperatures are significantly affected and can drop 100-200 K under a cloudy sky.
We find that among our targets, HD213885 b and HD20329 b are most affected by cloud formation: there is a discernable difference between having clouds and not having them, but the precision required to make such an inference is at the limit of current instruments.
T. Giang Nguyen, Nicolas B. Cowan, Lisa Dang
Comments: 15 pages, 7 figures; revised manuscript under review
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2407.21111 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2407.21111v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Giang Nguyen
[v1] Tue, 30 Jul 2024 18:03:27 UTC (3,164 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.21111
Astrobiology, Exoplanet,
