Exoplanetology: Exoplanets & Exomoons

The Unrealised Interdisciplinary Advantage of Observing High Mass Transiting Exoplanets and Brown Dwarfs — Strategic Exoplanet Initiatives with HST and JWST White Paper

By Keith Cowing
Status Report
astro-ph.IM
August 18, 2024
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The Unrealised Interdisciplinary Advantage of Observing High Mass Transiting Exoplanets and Brown Dwarfs — Strategic Exoplanet Initiatives with HST and JWST White Paper
The population of transiting exoplanets and brown dwarfs, as obtained from TEPCat [6], marker size corresponds to equilibrium temperature. Targets being observed in Cycle 1 and/or 2 are highlighted accordingly, their temperature is further indicated by their color, and the histogram shows the number of targets as a function of mass. The red line indicates the lowest mass objects being characterized through direct techniques to date. — astro-ph.IM

We advocate for further prioritisation of atmospheric characterisation observations of high mass transiting exoplanets and brown dwarfs.

This population acts as a unique comparative sample to the directly imaged exoplanet and brown dwarf populations, of which a range of JWST characterisation observations are planned.

In contrast, only two observations of transiting exoplanets in this mass regime were performed in Cycle 1, and none are planned for Cycle 2. Such observations will: improve our understanding of how irradiation influences high gravity atmospheres, provide insights towards planetary formation and evolution across this mass regime, and exploit JWST’s unique potential to characterise exoplanets across the known population.

Aarynn L. Carter, Munazza. K. Alam, Thomas Beatty, Sarah Casewell, Katy L. Chubb, Kielan Hoch, Nikole Lewis, Joshua D. Lothringer, Elena Manjavacas, Sarah E. Moran, Hannah R. Wakeford

Comments: 4 pages, 2 figures. This white paper was submitted following a call from the “Working Group on Strategic Exoplanet Initiatives with HST and JWST” (this https URL, final report in https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2404.02932)
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
Cite as: arXiv:2408.07723 [astro-ph.IM] (or arXiv:2408.07723v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2408.07723
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Submission history
From: Aarynn Carter Dr
[v1] Wed, 14 Aug 2024 13:33:07 UTC (1,088 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.07723
Astrobiology,

Keith Cowing

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) 🖖🏻

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