Gas Giants Archives

The age and configuration of the known planets in putative, icy exomoon-bearing Jupiter-like gas giant consisting of candidate exosystems. The size of the bubbles indicates the mass of the planets in MJup. The dotted, dashed, and solid black curves in the upper right corner of the plot show the estimated impact ratio in the case of Late Heavy Bombardment and are used as an indicator of higher probability bioaerosol ejection in space 28 (steady decrease impact flux: dotted and dashed lines, and single cataclysm - sensu stricto Late Heavy Bombardment: solid line scenarios) [51]. I.e. the curves may show the changing tendency in the probability of bioaerosol ejection and transportation in the case of various exosystems in the period marked by the transparent grey horizontal regions. -- astro-ph.EP

Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Impact events, Panspermia, Status Report

Searching For Jupiter And Saturn Analog Planets With Potential Icy Exomoons — A Panspermia Perspective

by Keith CowingJune 17, 2024June 17, 2024

Considering the possibility of complex organic molecules and microbial life appearing under the ice shell of those satellites in the Solar system, this study investigates the possible analog sources (targeting […]

Transmission spectra models including H2O, CH4 and CO of TOI-3362 b (top) and TOI-677 b (bottom) in black with corresponding absorption bands of H2O, CH4 and CO for reference in shades of pink. Top panel: Model spectra of TOI3362 b including absorption of H2O, CH4 and CO. The models assume an isothermal atmosphere at the calculated equilibrium temperature of Teq,A=0 = 1 100 K. The corresponding abundance profiles were computed with FastChem Cond (Stock et al. 2018, 2022; Kitzmann et al. 2023), see Fig. 4, and then translated into mass fractions to produce the transmission models using petitRADTRANS (Mollière et al. 2019). The H2O mass fractions were scaled with factors of 1 (nominal), 10, 100, and 1000 for model injection. Considered absorption bands included in the model to identify the features. The absorption band models were computed under the same assumption, but only including the considered species. Bottom panel: Same as top panel, but for TOI-677 b. The models assume an isothermal atmosphere at the calculated equilibrium temperature of Teq = 1 252 K (Jordán et al. 2020). -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

High-resolution Transmission Spectroscopy Of Warm Jupiters: An ESPRESSO Sample With Predictions For ANDES

by Keith CowingJune 14, 2024

Warm Jupiter atmospheres predominantly consist of molecular species, notably water, methane and carbon monoxide, often accompanied by clouds and hazes muting their atmospheric features. In this study, we investigate the […]

Phase curves for the 9 planet candidates, showing TESS data in black. Orange lines show fitted transit models, while orange circles represent the underlying data averaged every 15 minutes. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Status Report

9 New M Dwarf Planet Candidates From TESS Including 5 Gas Giants

by Keith CowingJune 13, 2024June 13, 2024

We present the detection of 9 new planet candidates orbiting M dwarfs, identified using an independent search and vetting pipeline applied to TESS Full-Frame Image (FFI) data from Sectors 1 […]

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release

Weird New Planet Retained An Atmosphere Despite Its Nearby Star’s Relentless Radiation

by Keith CowingJune 6, 2024

A rare exoplanet that should have been stripped down to bare rock by its nearby host star’s intense radiation somehow grew a puffy atmosphere instead—the latest in a string of […]

Cloud system in Jupiter's northern hemisphere imaged by Juno spacecraft. Photo: NASA

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Jupiter, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Using Oceanography To Understand Fronts And Cyclones On Jupiter

by Keith CowingJune 6, 2024June 6, 2024

New research led by Lia Siegelman, a physical oceanographer at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, shows that the roiling storms at the planet Jupiter’s polar regions are powered […]

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Recipes For Forming A Carbon-rich Giant Planet

by Keith CowingJune 3, 2024June 3, 2024

The exploration of carbon-to-oxygen ratios has yielded intriguing insights into the composition of close-in giant exoplanets, giving rise to a distinct classification: carbon-rich planets, characterized by a carbon-to-oxygen ratio ≥ […]

PSF-subtracted JWST/NIRCam (left) and MIRI (right) images of the β Pic system (arbitrary color stretch). Five background sources were identified based on their NIRCam colors or morphology whose positions are highlighted in both images with red circles. The orange circles in the NIRCam image show the source positions rotated by the telescope roll angle, where negative ADI residuals are visible. BG4 appears to be the only source which is also visible in the MIRI image. The MIRI image was adapted from Rebollido et al. (2024). -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Beta Pictoris, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release

JWST-TST High Contrast: JWST/NIRCam Observations Of The Young Giant Planet β Pic b

by Keith CowingMay 30, 2024May 30, 2024

We present the first JWST/NIRCam observations of the directly-imaged gas giant exoplanet β Pic b. Observations in six filters using NIRCam’s round coronagraphic masks provide a high signal-to-noise detection of […]

Mass–radius diagram of confirmed exoplanets with mass and radius precision better than 3σ and 10σ, respectively. Planetary parameters (black dots) are taken from the NASA Exoplanet Archive (https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu), and updated to October 2023. HD 73344b is represented by the red dot. The red arrow represents the upper 10σ limit on its mass. Composition models calculated from Aguichine et al. (2021) with a core mass fraction of 30% and various H2O mass fraction (from 10% to 80%) are represented by coloured lines (see text). Composition models calculated from Lopez & Fortney (2014) for a 1 Gyr-old system, Teq,b ∼ 900 K, and an envelope mass fraction fenv = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] % are shown in gray. For comparison, the relation for an Earth-like composition (32.5% core, 67.5% mantle) from Brugger et al. (2017) is shown by the green dashed curve, and some solar system planets (Venus, the Earth, Uranus and Neptune) are displayed. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

A Low-mass Sub-Neptune Planet Transiting The Bright Active Star HD 73344

by Keith CowingMay 29, 2024May 29, 2024

Context. Planets with radii of between 2-4 RE closely orbiting solar-type stars are of significant importance for studying the transition from rocky to giant planets.