gas giant Archives - Page 12 of 12 - Astrobiology

Hot Exoplanet WASP-43b - MPIA

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

Clouds Blanket The Night Side Of The Hot Exoplanet WASP-43b

by Keith CowingMay 1, 2024May 1, 2024

Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a team of astronomers, including scientists from MPIA, constructed a global temperature map of the hot, gas giant exoplanet WASP-43b. The nearby parent […]

This artist’s concept shows what the hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-43 b could look like. WASP-43 b is a Jupiter-sized planet that orbits a star roughly 280 light-years away, in the constellation Sextans. The planet orbits at a distance of about 0.014 AU (1.3 million miles), completing one circuit in about 19.5 hours. Because it is so close to its star, WASP-43 b is probably tidally locked: its rotation rate and orbital period are the same, such that one side faces the star at all times. -- ESA

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Press Release

Webb Maps Weather On Hot Gas-giant Exoplanet WASP-43b

by Keith CowingApril 30, 2024April 30, 2024

An international team of researchers has successfully used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to map the weather on the hot gas-giant exoplanet WASP-43 b.

Different scenarios of super-rotating atmospheric material. Panels a, b and c show the scenario of a homogeneously rotating planet. The purple solid line shows the velocity kernel of the material at rotation consistent with tidally locked rotation (panel b) and the resulting shape of the cross-correlation function (panel c). The turquoise dashed line shows the effect of the planet rotating approximately six times faster. Panels d, e and f show two cases of a super-rotating equatorial jet, with the poles rotating at tidally locked velocities. The difference between the two cases is the opening angle of the equatorial region (35◦ orange dashed, and 65◦ solid green). Panels g, h and i explore the case of the velocity kernel of a super-rotating equatorial jet (blue and red solid lines in panel h) with the polar region represented by the velocity kernel of super-rotating velocity (grey dash-dotted line) or tidally locked velocity (grey dotted line) but not contributing to the transmission spectrum due to muted atmospheric features, leading in both cases to only two peaks in the CCF (panel i). -- astro-ph.EP

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

CRIRES+ Transmission Spectroscopy of WASP-127b. Detection Of The Resolved Signatures Of A Supersonic Equatorial Jet And Cool Poles In A Hot Planet

by Keith CowingApril 20, 2024April 20, 2024

General circulation models of gas giant exoplanets predict equatorial jets that drive inhomogeneities across the planetary atmosphere. We studied the transmission spectrum of the hot Jupiter WASP-127b during one transit […]

We show the transmission spectrum for each reduction in the top panel and the differences between the reductions (in units of sigma) in the bottom panel. All three of our reductions agree per-point, at the ∼2σ level or better, with a median difference of 6ppm. -- astro-ph.EP

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

JWST COMPASS: A NIRSpec/G395H Transmission Spectrum Of The Sub-Neptune TOI-836c

by Keith CowingApril 2, 2024

Planets between the sizes of Earth and Neptune are the most common in the Galaxy, bridging the gap between the terrestrial and giant planets in our Solar System.

Left: Average completeness map for the super-Earth RV sample with detected gas giants overplotted in teal. Right: Average completeness map for the super-Earth transit sample with detected gas giants overplotted in teal. Color scale represents detection probability. On average, the RV sample has higher completeness to distant gas giants typically driven by much longer time baselines and more data points. Accounting for differences in individual system sensitivity as well as these broad trends between transit and RV samples is key to calculating frequencies of gas giants in our sample of super-Earth systems. -- astro-ph.EP

Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

Strong Correlation Between Inner Super-Earths And Outer Gas Giant

by Keith CowingMarch 15, 2024

The connection between outer gas giants and inner super-Earths reflects their formation and evolutionary histories. Past work exploring this link has suggested a tentative positive correlation between these two populations, […]

(A) Three idealized Jovian thermal models, dry adiabatic (black), sub-adiabatic (orange) and super-adiabatic (blue). The non-adiabatic temperature gradient is ± 0.15 �/km. The grey dashed lines show the contribution functions of 10, 5.2, 2.6, and 1.25 GHz channels (from top to bottom). (B) Nadir brightness temperature anomalies at six Juno MWR channels. From top to bottom, they are at 22 GHz, 10 GHz, 5.2 GHz, 2.6 GHz, 1.25 GHz, and 0.6 GHz, respectively. The horizontal error bars show a conservative 2% uncertainty. The contribution 5 functions for 22 GHz and 0.6 GHz peak at pressures outside the range of the graph. (C) Limbdarkening anomalies (evaluated at a 45-degree emission angle). The horizontal error bars show a 0.1% instrument noise level (Janssen et al., 2005, 2017). -- astro-ph.EP

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Jupiter, Status Report

Super-adiabatic Temperature Gradient at Jupiter’s Equatorial Zone and Implications For Water Abundance

by Keith CowingMarch 12, 2024March 12, 2024

The temperature structure of a giant planet was traditionally thought to be an adiabat assuming convective mixing homogenizes entropy.

JUICE -- ESA

Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Callisto, Europa, Ganymede, Gas Giants, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Io, Jupiter, Missions & Hardware, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Jupiter Science Enabled by ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer

by Keith CowingMay 7, 2023April 14, 2024

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) will provide a detailed investigation of the Jovian system in the 2030s, combining a suite of state-of-the-art instruments with an orbital tour tailored to […]