Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRISS
Abstract
Transmission spectroscopy provides insight into the atmospheric properties and consequently the formation history, physics, and chemistry of transiting exoplanets. However, obtaining precise inferences of atmospheric properties from transmission spectra requires simultaneously measuring the strength and shape of multiple spectral absorption features from a wide range of chemical species. This has been challenging given the precision and wavelength coverage of previous observatories. Here, we present the transmission spectrum of the Saturn-mass exoplanet WASP-39b obtained using the SOSS mode of the NIRISS instrument on the JWST. This spectrum spans m in wavelength and reveals multiple water absorption bands, the potassium resonance doublet, as well as signatures of clouds. The precision and broad wavelength coverage of NIRISS-SOSS allows us to break model degeneracies between cloud properties and the atmospheric composition of WASP-39b, favoring a heavy element enhancement ("metallicity") of the solar value, a sub-solar carbon-to-oxygen (C/O) ratio, and a solar-to-super-solar potassium-to-oxygen (K/O) ratio. The observations are best explained by wavelength-dependent, non-gray clouds with inhomogeneous coverage of the planet's terminator.
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Cite
@article{arxiv.2211.10493,
title = {Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRISS},
author = {Adina D. Feinstein and Michael Radica and Luis Welbanks and Catriona Anne Murray and Kazumasa Ohno and Louis-Philippe Coulombe and Néstor Espinoza and Jacob L. Bean and Johanna K. Teske and Björn Benneke and Michael R. Line and Zafar Rustamkulov and Arianna Saba and Angelos Tsiaras and Joanna K. Barstow and Jonathan J. Fortney and Peter Gao and Heather A. Knutson and Ryan J. MacDonald and Thomas Mikal-Evans and Benjamin V. Rackham and Jake Taylor and Vivien Parmentier and Natalie M. Batalha and Zachory K. Berta-Thompson and Aarynn L. Carter and Quentin Changeat and Leonardo A. Dos Santos and Neale P. Gibson and Jayesh M Goyal and Laura Kreidberg and Mercedes López-Morales and Joshua D Lothringer and Yamila Miguel and Karan Molaverdikhani and Sarah E. Moran and Giuseppe Morello and Sagnick Mukherjee and David K. Sing and Kevin B. Stevenson and Hannah R. Wakeford and Eva-Maria Ahrer and Munazza K. Alam and Lili Alderson and Natalie H. Allen and Natasha E. Batalha and Taylor J. Bell and Jasmina Blecic and Jonathan Brande and Claudio Caceres and S. L. Casewell and Katy L. Chubb and Ian J. M. Crossfield and Nicolas Crouzet and Patricio E. Cubillos and Leen Decin and Jean-Michel Désert and Joseph Harrington and Kevin Heng and Thomas Henning and Nicolas Iro and Eliza M. -R. Kempton and Sarah Kendrew and James Kirk and Jessica Krick and Pierre-Olivier Lagage and Monika Lendl and Luigi Mancini and Megan Mansfield and E. M. May and N. J. Mayne and Nikolay K. Nikolov and Enric Palle and Dominique J. M. Petit dit de la Roche and Caroline Piaulet and Diana Powell and Seth Redfield and Laura K. Rogers and Michael T. Roman and Pierre-Alexis Roy and Matthew C. Nixon and Everett Schlawin and Xianyu Tan and P. Tremblin and Jake D. Turner and Olivia Venot and William C. Waalkes and Peter J. Wheatley and Xi Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2211.10493},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
48 pages, 12 figures, 2 tables. Under review at Nature