Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRSpec PRISM.
Zafar RustamkulovDavid K SingS MukherjeeE M MayJ KirkE SchlawinMichael R LineCaroline PiauletA L CarterN E BatalhaJ M GoyalM López-MoralesJoshua D LothringerR J MacDonaldS E MoranKevin B StevensonHannah R WakefordN EspinozaJ L BeanN M BatalhaBjörn BennekeZ K Berta-ThompsonI J M CrossfieldP GaoL KreidbergD K PowellP E CubillosN P GibsonJ LeconteKaran MolaverdikhaniNikolay NikolovV ParmentierP RoyJake TaylorJ D TurnerPeter J WheatleyK AggarwalEva-Maria AhrerM K AlamLili AldersonN H AllenA BanerjeeS BaratDavid BarradoJ K BarstowT J BellJ BlecicJ BrandeS CasewellQ ChangeatK L ChubbNicolas CrouzetT DaylanLeen DecinJ DésertThomas EvansAdina D FeinsteinL FlaggJ J FortneyJ HarringtonK HengY HongRenyu HuN IroT KatariaEliza M-R KemptonJ KrickM LendlJorge Lillo-BoxA LoucaJ Lustig-YaegerLuigi ManciniMegan MansfieldNathan J MayneY MiguelG MorelloK OhnoEnric PalleD J M Petit Dit de la RocheB V RackhamM RadicaL Ramos-RosadoSeth RedfieldL K RogersE L ShkolnikJ SouthworthJ TeskePascal TremblinG S TuckerO VenotW C WaalkesL WelbanksX ZhangS ZiebaPublished in: Nature (2023)
Transmission spectroscopy 1,2,3 of exoplanets has revealed signatures of water vapor, aerosols, and alkali metals in a few dozen exoplanet atmospheres 4,5 . However, these previous inferences with the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes were hindered by the observations' relatively narrow wavelength range and spectral resolving power, which precluded the unambiguous identification of other chemical species - in particular the primary carbon-bearing molecules 6,7 . Here we report a broad-wavelength 0.5-5.5 µm atmospheric transmission spectrum of WASP39 b 8 , a 1200 K, roughly Saturn-mass, Jupiter-radius exoplanet, measured with JWST NIRSpec's PRISM mode 9 as part of the JWST Transiting Exoplanet Community Early Release Science Team program 10,11,12 . We robustly detect multiple chemical species at high significance, including Na (19σ), H 2 O (33σ), CO 2 (28σ), and CO (7σ). The non-detection of CH 4 , combined with a strong CO 2 feature, favours atmospheric models with a super-solar atmospheric metallicity. An unanticipated absorption feature at 4µm is best explained by SO 2 (2.7σ), which could be a tracer of atmospheric photochemistry. These observations demonstrate JWST's sensitivity to a rich diversity of exoplanet compositions and chemical processes.
Keyphrases
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