ABSTRACT
Next-generation missions designed to detect biosignatures on exoplanets will also be capable of placing constraints on technosignatures (evidence for technological life) on these same ...worlds. Here, I estimate the detectability of nightside city lights on habitable, Earth-like, exoplanets around nearby stars using direct-imaging observations from the proposed LUVOIR and HabEx observatories, assuming these lights come from high-pressure sodium lamps. I consider how the detectability scales with urbanization fraction: from Earth’s value of 0.05 per cent, up to the limiting case of an ecumenopolis – or planet-wide city. Though an Earth analogue would not be detectable by LUVOIR or HabEx, planets around M-dwarfs close to the Sun would show detectable signals at $3\, \sigma$ from city lights, using 300 h of observing time, for urbanization levels of 0.4–3 per cent, while city lights on planets around nearby Sun-like stars would be detectable at urbanization levels of ${\gtrsim}10{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$. The known planet Proxima b is a particularly compelling target for LUVOIR A observations, which would be able to detect city lights 12 times that of Earth in 300 h, an urbanization level that is expected to occur on Earth around the mid-22nd century. An ecumenopolis, or planet-wide city, would be detectable around roughly 30–50 nearby stars by both LUVOIR and HabEx, and a survey of these systems would place a $1\, \sigma$ upper limit of ${\lesssim}2$ to ${\lesssim}4{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$, and a $3\, \sigma$ upper limit ${\lesssim}10$ to ${\lesssim}15{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$, on the frequency of ecumenopolis planets in the Solar neighbourhood assuming no detections.
A key legacy of the recently launched the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission will be to provide the astronomical community with many of the best transiting exoplanet targets for ...atmospheric characterization. However, time is of the essence to take full advantage of this opportunity. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), although delayed, will still complete its nominal five year mission on a timeline that motivates rapid identification, confirmation, and mass measurement of the top atmospheric characterization targets from TESS. Beyond JWST, future dedicated missions for atmospheric studies such as the Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey (ARIEL) require the discovery and confirmation of several hundred additional sub-Jovian size planets (Rp < 10 R⊕) orbiting bright stars, beyond those known today, to ensure a successful statistical census of exoplanet atmospheres. Ground-based extremely large telescopes (ELTs) will also contribute to surveying the atmospheres of the transiting planets discovered by TESS. Here we present a set of two straightforward analytic metrics, quantifying the expected signal-to-noise in transmission and thermal emission spectroscopy for a given planet, that will allow the top atmospheric characterization targets to be readily identified among the TESS planet candidates. Targets that meet our proposed threshold values for these metrics would be encouraged for rapid follow-up and confirmation via radial velocity mass measurements. Based on the catalog of simulated TESS detections by Sullivan et al., we determine appropriate cutoff values of the metrics, such that the TESS mission will ultimately yield a sample of ∼300 high-quality atmospheric characterization targets across a range of planet size bins, extending down to Earth-size, potentially habitable worlds.
We observed two full orbital phase curves of the transiting brown dwarf KELT-1b, at 3.6 and 4.5 m, using the Spitzer Space Telescope. Combined with previous eclipse data from Beatty et al., we ...strongly detect KELT-1b's phase variation as a single sinusoid in both bands, with amplitudes of 964 36 ppm at 3.6 m and 979 54 ppm at 4.5 m, and confirm the secondary eclipse depths measured by Beatty et al. We also measure noticeable eastward hotspot offsets of 28 4 3 5 at 3.6 m and 18 6 5 2 at 4.5 m. Both the day-night temperature contrasts and the hotspot offsets we measure are in line with the trends seen in hot Jupiters, though we disagree with the recent suggestion of an offset trend by Zhang et al. Using an ensemble analysis of Spitzer phase curves, we argue that nightside clouds are playing a noticeable role in modulating the thermal emission from these objects, based on: (1) the lack of a clear trend in phase offsets with equilibrium temperature, (2) the sharp day-night transitions required to have non-negative intensity maps, which also resolves the inversion issues raised by Keating & Cowan, (3) the fact that all the nightsides of these objects appear to be at roughly the same temperature of 1000 K, while the dayside temperatures increase linearly with equilibrium temperature, and (4) the trajectories of these objects on a Spitzer color-magnitude diagram, which suggest colors only explainable via nightside clouds.
We present thermal phase curve measurements for the hot Jupiter WASP-103b observed with Hubble/WFC3 and Spitzer/IRAC. The phase curves have large amplitudes and negligible hotspot offsets, indicative ...of poor heat redistribution to the nightside. We fit the phase variation with a range of climate maps and find that a spherical harmonics model generally provides the best fit. The phase-resolved spectra are consistent with blackbodies in the WFC3 bandpass, with brightness temperatures ranging from 1880 40 K on the nightside to 2930 40 K on the dayside. The dayside spectrum has a significantly higher brightness temperature in the Spitzer bands, likely due to CO emission and a thermal inversion. The inversion is not present on the nightside. We retrieved the atmospheric composition and found that it is moderately metal-enriched ( ) and the carbon-to-oxygen ratio is below 0.9 at 3 confidence. In contrast to cooler hot Jupiters, we do not detect spectral features from water, which we attribute to partial H2O dissociation. We compare the phase curves to 3D general circulation models and find that magnetic drag effects are needed to match the data. We also compare the WASP-103b spectra to brown dwarfs and young, directly imaged companions. We find that these objects have significantly larger water features, indicating that surface gravity and irradiation environment play an important role in shaping the spectra of hot Jupiters. These results highlight the 3D structure of exoplanet atmospheres and illustrate the importance of phase curve observations for understanding their complex chemistry and physics.
Abstract WASP-69 b is a hot, inflated, Saturn-mass planet (0.26 M Jup ) with a zero-albedo equilibrium temperature of 963 K. Here, we report the JWST 2–12 μ m emission spectrum of the planet ...consisting of two eclipses observed with NIRCam grism time series and one eclipse observed with the MIRI low-resolution spectrometer (LRS). The emission spectrum shows absorption features of water vapor, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide, but no strong evidence for methane. WASP-69 b’s emission spectrum is poorly fit by cloud-free homogeneous models. We find three possible model scenarios for the planet: (1) a scattering model that raises the brightness at short wavelengths with a free geometric albedo parameter; (2) a cloud-layer model that includes high-altitude silicate aerosols to moderate long-wavelength emission; and (3) a two-region model that includes significant dayside inhomogeneity and cloud opacity with two different temperature–pressure profiles. In all cases, aerosols are needed to fit the spectrum of the planet. The scattering model requires an unexpectedly high geometric albedo of 0.64. Our atmospheric retrievals indicate inefficient redistribution of heat and an inhomogeneous dayside distribution, which is tentatively supported by MIRI LRS broadband eclipse maps that show a central concentration of brightness. Our more plausible models (2 and 3) retrieve chemical abundances enriched in heavy elements relative to solar composition by 6× to 14× solar and a C/O ratio of 0.65–0.94, whereas the less plausible highly reflective scenario (1) retrieves a slightly lower metallicity and lower C/O ratio.
Phase curve observations provide an opportunity to study the energy budgets of exoplanets by quantifying the amount of heat redistributed from their daysides to their nightsides. Theories of phase ...curves for hot Jupiters have focused on the balance between radiation and dynamics as the primary parameter controlling heat redistribution. However, recent phase curves have shown deviations from the trends that emerge from this theory, which has led to work on additional processes that may affect hot Jupiter energy budgets. One such process, molecular hydrogen dissociation and recombination, can enhance energy redistribution on ultra-hot Jupiters with temperatures above ∼2000 K. In order to study the impact of H2 dissociation on ultra-hot Jupiters, we present a phase curve of KELT-9b observed with the Spitzer Space Telescope at 4.5 m. KELT-9b is the hottest known transiting planet, with a 4.5 m dayside brightness temperature of and a nightside temperature of . We observe a phase curve amplitude of 0.609 0.020 and an offset of . The observed amplitude is too small to be explained by a simple balance between radiation and advection. General circulation models (GCMs) and an energy balance model that include the effects of H2 dissociation and recombination provide a better match to the data. The GCMs, however, predict a maximum phase offset of 5°, which disagrees with our observations at >5 confidence. This discrepancy may be due to magnetic effects in the planet's highly ionized atmosphere.
We observed eclipses of the transiting brown dwarf CWW 89Ab at 3.6 and 4.5 m using Spitzer/IRAC. The CWW 89 binary system is a member of the 3.0 0.25 Gyr old open cluster Ruprecht 147 and is composed ...of a Sun-like primary and an early M-dwarf secondary separated by a projected distance of 25 au. CWW 89Ab has a radius of 0.937 0.042 and a mass of 36.5 0.1 , and is on a 5.3 day orbit about CWW 89A with a non-zero eccentricity of e = 0.19. We strongly detect the eclipses of CWW 89Ab in both Spitzer channels as δ3.6 = 1147 213 ppm and δ4.5 = 1097 225 ppm after correcting for the dilution from CWW 89B. After accounting for the irradiation that CWW 89Ab receives from its host star, these measurements imply that the brown dwarf has an internal luminosity of . This is 16 times, or 9.3 , higher than model predictions given the known mass, radius, and age of CWW 89Ab. As we discuss, this overluminosity is explainable neither by an inaccurate age determination, nor additional stellar heating, nor tidal heating. Instead, we suggest that the anomalous luminosity of CWW 89Ab is caused by a dayside temperature inversion-though a significant error in the evolutionary models is also a possibility. Importantly, a temperature inversion would require a superstellar C/O ratio in CWW 89Ab's atmosphere. If this is indeed the case, it implies that CWW 89Ab is a 36.5 object that formed via core accretion processes. Finally, we use our measurement of CWW 89Ab's orbital eccentricity, improved via these observations, to constrain the tidal quality factors of the brown dwarf and the host star CWW 89A to be and , respectively.
Abstract
Though the global atmospheres of hot Jupiters have been extensively studied using phase curve observations, the level of time variability in these data is not well constrained. To ...investigate possible time variability in a planetary phase curve, we observed two full-orbit phase curves of the hot Jupiter WASP-43b at 4.5
μ
m using the Spitzer Space Telescope, and reanalyzed a previous 4.5
μ
m phase curve from Stevenson et al. We find no significant time variability between these three phase curves, which span timescales of weeks to years. The three observations are best fit by a single phase curve with an eclipse depth of 3907 ± 85 ppm, a dayside-integrated brightness temperature of 1479 ± 13 K, a nightside integrated brightness temperature of 755 ± 46 K, and an eastward-shifted peak of 10.°4 ± 1.°8. To model our observations, we performed 3D general circulation model simulations of WASP-43b with simple cloud models of various vertical extents. In comparing these simulations to our observations, we find that WASP-43b likely has a cloudy nightside that transitions to a relatively cloud-free dayside. We estimate that any change in WASP-43b’s vertical cloud thickness of more than three pressure scale heights is inconsistent with our observed upper limit on variation. These observations, therefore, indicate that WASP-43b’s clouds are stable in their vertical and spatial extent over timescales up to several years. These results strongly suggest that atmospheric properties derived from previous, single Spitzer phase curve observations of hot Jupiters likely show us the equilibrium properties of these atmospheres.
We observed two eclipses of the Kepler-13A planetary system, on UT 2014 April 28 and UT 2014 October 13, in the near-infrared using Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope. By using the ...nearby binary stars Kepler-13BC as a reference, we were able to create a differential light curve for Kepler-13A that had little of the systematics typically present in HST/WFC3 spectrophotometry. We measure a broadband (1.1-1.65 m) eclipse depth of 734 28 ppm and are able to measure the emission spectrum of the planet at R 50 with an average precision of 70 ppm. We find that Kepler-13Ab possesses a noninverted, monotonically decreasing vertical temperature profile. We exclude an isothermal profile and an inverted profile at more than 3 . We also find that the dayside emission of Kepler-13Ab appears generally similar to an isolated M7 brown dwarf at a similar effective temperature. Due to the relatively high mass and surface gravity of Kepler-13Ab, we suggest that the apparent lack of an inversion is due to cold-trap processes in the planet's atmosphere. Using a toy model for where cold traps should inhibit inversions, as well as observations of other planets in this temperature range with measured emission spectra, we argue that with more detailed modeling and more observations we may be able to place useful constraints on the size of condensates on the daysides of hot Jupiters.
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