Over the past decade, observations of giant exoplanets (Jupiter-size) have provided key insights into their atmospheres, but the properties of lower-mass exoplanets (sub-Neptune) remain largely ...unconstrained because of the challenges of observing small planets. Numerous efforts to observe the spectra of super-Earths--exoplanets with masses of one to ten times that of Earth--have so far revealed only featureless spectra. Here we report a longitudinal thermal brightness map of the nearby transiting super-Earth 55 Cancri e (refs 4, 5) revealing highly asymmetric dayside thermal emission and a strong day-night temperature contrast. Dedicated space-based monitoring of the planet in the infrared revealed a modulation of the thermal flux as 55 Cancri e revolves around its star in a tidally locked configuration. These observations reveal a hot spot that is located 41 ± 12 degrees east of the substellar point (the point at which incident light from the star is perpendicular to the surface of the planet). From the orbital phase curve, we also constrain the nightside brightness temperature of the planet to 1,380 ± 400 kelvin and the temperature of the warmest hemisphere (centred on the hot spot) to be about 1,300 kelvin hotter (2,700 ± 270 kelvin) at a wavelength of 4.5 micrometres, which indicates inefficient heat redistribution from the dayside to the nightside. Our observations are consistent with either an optically thick atmosphere with heat recirculation confined to the planetary dayside, or a planet devoid of atmosphere with low-viscosity magma flows at the surface.
We present a new method employing machine-learning techniques for measuring astrophysical features by correcting systematics in IRAC high-precision photometry using random forests. The main ...systematic in IRAC light-curve data is position changes due to unavoidable telescope motions coupled with an intrapixel response function. We aim to use the large amount of publicly available calibration data for the single pixel used for this type of work (the sweet-spot pixel) to make a fast, easy-to-use, accurate correction to science data. This correction on calibration data has the advantage of using an independent data set instead of the science data themselves, which has the disadvantage of including astrophysical variations. After focusing on feature engineering and hyperparameter optimization, we show that a boosted random forest model can reduce the data such that we measure the median of 10 archival eclipse observations of XO-3b to be 1459 200 ppm. This is a comparable depth to the average of those in the literature done by seven different methods; however, the spread in measurements is 30%-100% larger than those literature values, depending on the reduction method. We also caution others attempting similar methods to check their results with the fiducial data set of XO-3b, as we were also able to find models providing initially great scores on their internal test data sets but whose results significantly underestimated the eclipse depth of that planet.
While planets between the size of Uranus and Saturn are absent within the solar system, the star K2-24 hosts two such planets, K2-24b and c, with radii equal to 5.4 and 7.5 , respectively. The two ...planets have orbital periods of 20.9 days and 42.4 days, residing only 1% outside the nominal 2:1 mean-motion resonance. In this work, we present results from a coordinated observing campaign to measure planet masses and eccentricities that combines radial velocity measurements from Keck/HIRES and transit-timing measurements from K2 and Spitzer. K2-24b and c have low, but nonzero, eccentricities of . The low observed eccentricities provide clues to the formation and dynamical evolution of K2-24b and K2-24c, suggesting that they could be the result of stochastic gravitational interactions with a turbulent protoplanetary disk, among other mechanisms. K2-24b and c are and , respectively; K2-24c is 20% less massive than K2-24b, despite being 40% larger. Their large sizes and low masses imply large envelope fractions, which we estimate at % and %. In particular, K2-24c's large envelope presents an intriguing challenge to the standard model of core-nucleated accretion that predicts the onset of runaway accretion when 50%.
Abstract
An accurate tabulation of stellar brightness in physical units is essential for a multitude of scientific endeavors. The HST/CALSPEC database of flux standards contains many stars with ...spectral coverage in the 0.115–1
μ
m range, with some extensions to longer wavelengths of 1.7 or 2.5
μ
m. Modeled flux distributions to 32
μ
m for calibration of JWST complement the shorter-wavelength HST measurements. Understanding the differences between IRAC observations and CALSPEC models is important for science that uses IR fluxes from multiple instruments, including JWST. The absolute flux of Spitzer IRAC photometry at 3.6–8
μ
m agrees with CALSPEC synthetic photometry to 1% for the three prime HST standards: G191B2B, GD153, and GD71. For a set of 17–22 A-star standards, the average IRAC difference rises from agreement at 3.6
μ
m to 3.4% ± 0.1% brighter than CALSPEC at 8
μ
m. For a smaller set of G-type stars, the average of the IRAC photometry falls below CALSPEC by as much as 3.7% ± 0.3% for IRAC1, while one G-type star, P330E, is consistent with the A-star ensemble of IRAC/CALSPEC ratios.
ABSTRACT The recent detections of two transit events attributed to the super-Earth candidate K2-18b have provided the unprecedented prospect of spectroscopically studying a habitable-zone planet ...outside the solar system. Orbiting a nearby M2.5 dwarf and receiving virtually the same stellar insolation as Earth, K2-18b would be a prime candidate for the first detailed atmospheric characterization of a habitable-zone exoplanet using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Here, we report the detection of a third transit of K2-18b near the predicted transit time using the Spitzer Space Telescope. The Spitzer detection demonstrates the periodic nature of the two transit events discovered by K2, confirming that K2-18 is indeed orbited by a super-Earth in a 33 day orbit, ruling out the alternative scenario of two similarly sized, long-period planets transiting only once within the 75 day Kepler Space Telescope (K2) observation. We also find, however, that the transit event detected by Spitzer occurred 1.85 hr ( 7 ) before the predicted transit time. Our joint analysis of the Spitzer and K2 photometry reveals that this early occurrence of the transit is not caused by transit timing variations, but the result of an inaccurate ephemeris due to a previously undetected data anomaly in the K2 photometry. We refit the ephemeris and find that K2-18b would have been lost for future atmospheric characterizations with HST and JWST if we had not secured its ephemeris shortly after the discovery. We caution that immediate follow-up observations as presented here will also be critical for confirming and securing future planets discovered by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), in particular if only two transit events are covered by the relatively short 27-day TESS campaigns.
Abstract
With a mass in the Neptune regime and a radius of Jupiter, WASP-107b presents a challenge to planet formation theories. Meanwhile, the planet’s low surface gravity and the star’s brightness ...also make it one of the most favorable targets for atmospheric characterization. Here, we present the results of an extensive 4 yr Keck/HIRES radial-velocity (RV) follow-up program of the WASP-107 system and provide a detailed study of the physics governing the accretion of the gas envelope of WASP-107b. We reveal that WASP-107b’s mass is only 1.8 Neptune masses (
M
b
= 30.5 ± 1.7
M
⊕
). The resulting extraordinarily low density suggests that WASP-107b has a H/He envelope mass fraction of >85% unless it is substantially inflated. The corresponding core mass of <4.6
M
⊕
at 3
σ
is significantly lower than what is traditionally assumed to be necessary to trigger massive gas envelope accretion. We demonstrate that this large gas-to-core mass ratio most plausibly results from the onset of accretion at ≳1 au onto a low-opacity, dust-free atmosphere and subsequent migration to the present-day
a
b
= 0.0566 ± 0.0017 au. Beyond WASP-107b, we also detect a second, more massive planet (
) on a wide eccentric orbit (
e
c
= 0.28 ± 0.07) that may have influenced the orbital migration and spin–orbit misalignment of WASP-107b. Overall, our new RV observations and envelope accretion modeling provide crucial insights into the intriguing nature of WASP-107b and the system’s formation history. Looking ahead, WASP-107b will be a keystone planet to understand the physics of gas envelope accretion.
ABSTRACT We measure the 4.5 m thermal emission of five transiting hot Jupiters, WASP-13b, WASP-15b, WASP-16b, WASP-62b, and HAT-P-22b using channel 2 of the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) on the ...Spitzer Space Telescope. Significant intrapixel sensitivity variations in Spitzer IRAC data require careful correction in order to achieve precision on the order of several hundred parts per million (ppm) for the measurement of exoplanet secondary eclipses. We determine eclipse depths by first correcting the raw data using three independent data reduction methods. The Pixel Gain Map (PMAP), Nearest Neighbors (NNBR), and Pixel Level Decorrelation (PLD) each correct for the intrapixel sensitivity effect in Spitzer photometric time-series observations. The results from each methodology are compared against each other to establish if they reach a statistically equivalent result in every case and to evaluate their ability to minimize uncertainty in the measurement. We find that all three methods produce reliable results. For every planet examined here NNBR and PLD produce results that are in statistical agreement. However, the PMAP method appears to produce results in slight disagreement in cases where the stellar centroid is not kept consistently on the most well characterized area of the detector. We evaluate the ability of each method to reduce the scatter in the residuals as well as in the correlated noise in the corrected data. The NNBR and PLD methods consistently minimize both white and red noise levels and should be considered reliable and consistent. The planets in this study span equilibrium temperatures from 1100 to 2000 K and have brightness temperatures that require either high albedo or efficient recirculation. However, it is possible that other processes such as clouds or disequilibrium chemistry may also be responsible for producing these brightness temperatures.
Abstract
We present infrared photometry of all 36 potential JWST calibrators for which there is archival Spitzer IRAC data. This photometry can then be used to inform the stellar models necessary to ...provide absolute calibration for all JWST instruments. We describe in detail the steps necessary to measure IRAC photometry from archive retrieval to photometric corrections. To validate our photometry, we examine the distribution of uncertainties from all detections in all four IRAC channels as well as compare the photometry and its uncertainties to those from models, ALLWISE, and the literature. Seventy-five percent of our detections have standard deviations per star of all observations within each channel of less than 3%. The median standard deviations are 1.2%, 1.3%, 1.1%, and 1.9% in 3.6–8.0, respectively. We find less than 8% standard deviations in differences of our photometry with ALLWISE and excellent agreement with literature values (less than 3% difference), lending credence to our measured fluxes. JWST is poised to do groundbreaking science, and accurate calibration and cross-calibration with other missions will be part of the underpinnings of that science.
We present precision 4.5 Spitzer transit photometry of eight planet candidates discovered by the K2 mission: K2-52 b, K2-53 b, EPIC 205084841.01, K2-289 b, K2-174 b, K2-87 b, K2-90 b, and K2-124 b. ...The sample includes four sub-Neptunes and two sub-Saturns, with radii between 2.6 and 18 and equilibrium temperatures between 440 and 2000 K. In this paper we identify several targets of potential interest for future characterization studies, demonstrate the utility of transit follow-up observations for planet validation and ephemeris refinement, and present new imaging and spectroscopy data. Our simultaneous analysis of the K2 and Spitzer light curves yields improved estimates of the planet radii and multiwavelength information that helps validate their planetary nature, including the previously unvalidated candidate EPIC 205686202.01 (K2-289 b). Our Spitzer observations yield an order-of-magnitude increase in ephemeris precision, thus paving the way for efficient future study of these interesting systems by reducing the typical transit timing uncertainty in mid-2021 from several hours to a dozen or so minutes. K2-53 b, K2-289 b, K2-174 b, K2-87 b, and K2-90 b are promising radial velocity (RV) targets given the performance of spectrographs available today or in development, and the M3V star K2-124 hosts a temperate sub-Neptune that is potentially a good target for both RV and atmospheric characterization studies.
We present a new Spitzer transit observation of K2-28b, a sub-Neptune (Rp = 2.45 0.28 R⊕) orbiting a relatively bright (Vmag = 16.06, Kmag = 10.75) metal-rich M4 dwarf (EPIC 206318379). This star is ...one of only seven with masses less than 0.2 known to host transiting planets, and the planet appears to be a slightly smaller analogue of GJ 1214b ( ). Our new Spitzer observations were taken two years after the original K2 discovery data and have a significantly higher cadence, allowing us to derive improved estimates for this planet's radius, semimajor axis, and orbital period, which greatly reduce the uncertainty in the prediction of near future transit times for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations. We also evaluate the system's suitability for atmospheric characterization with JWST and find that it is currently the only small ( ) and cool (<600 K) planet aside from GJ 1214b with a potentially detectable secondary eclipse. We also note that this system is a favorable target for near-infrared radial velocity instruments on larger telescopes (e.g., the Habitable Planet Finder on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope), making it one of only a handful of small, cool planets accessible with this technique. Finally, we compare our results with the simulated catalog of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and find K2-28b to be representative of the kind of mid-M systems that should be detectable in the TESS sample.
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