Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRCam

Ahrer, Eva-Maria; Stevenson, Kevin B.; Mansfield, Megan; Moran, Sarah E.; Brande, Jonathan; Morello, Giuseppe; Murray, C. A.; Nikolov, Nikolay; Roche, D. J. M. Petit dit de la; Schlawin, Everett; Wheatley, P. J.; Zieba, Sebastian; Batalha, Natasha E.; Damiano, Mario; Goyal, Jayesh; Lendl, M.; Lothringer, Joshua D.; Mukherjee, Sagnick; Ohno, Kazumasa; Batalha, Natalie M.; Battley, Matthew P.; Bean, Jacob L.; Beatty, Thomas G.; Benneke, Björn; Berta-Thompson, Zachory K.; Carter, Aarynn L.; Cubillos, Patricio; Daylan, Tansu; Espinoza, N.; Gao, Peter; Gibson, Neale P.; Gill, Samuel; Harrington, Joseph; Hu, Renyu; Kreidberg, Laura; Lewis, Nikole K.; Line, Michael R.; López‐Morales, Mercedes; Parmentier, Vivien; Powell, Diana; Sing, David K.; Tsai, Shang-Min; Wakeford, Hannah R.; Welbanks, Luis; Alam, Munazza K.; Alderson, Lili; Allen, Natalie H.; Anderson, D. R.; Barstow, Joanna K.; Bayliss, Daniel; Bell, Taylor; Blecic, Jasmina; Bryant, Edward M.; Burleigh, Matthew R.; Carone, L.; Casewell, Sarah L.; Changeat, Quentin; Chubb, Katy L.; Crossfield, Ian J. M.; Crouzet, Nicolas; Decin, L.; Désert, Jean-Michel; Feinstein, Adina D.; Flagg, Laura; Fortney, Jonathan J.; Gizis, John E.; Heng, Kevin; Iro, Nicolas; Kempton, Eliza M.-R.; Kendrew, Sarah; Kirk, James; Knutson, Heather A.; Komacek, Thaddeus D.; Lagage, Pierre-Olivier; Leconte, Jérémy; Lustig‐Yaeger, Jacob; Macdonald, Ryan; Mancini, L.; May, Erin M.; Mayne, Nathan J.; Miguel, Yamila; Mikal-Evans, Thomas; Molaverdikhani, Karan; Πάλλη, Ε.; Piaulet, Caroline; Rackham, Benjamin V.; Redfield, Seth; Rogers, Laura K.; Roy, Pierre-Alexis; Rustamkulov, Zafar; Shkolnik, Evgenya L.; Sotzen, Kristin S.; Taylor, Jake; Tremblin, Pascal; Tucker, Gregory S.; Turner, Jake D.; Val-Borro, Miguel de; Venot, Olivia; Zhang, Xi

doi:10.1038/s41586-022-05590-4

Cited by 112 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 127 publications

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“…CO remained undetected with the Bayesian fitting analysis and therefore we are unable to robustly confirm evidence of CO. Similarly, no evidence for CH 4 was found 23 . Gaussian residual fitting in the region of CH 4 absorption only found a very broad inverse Gaussian and so is not included in ED Table 3.…”

Section: Extended Datamentioning

confidence: 92%

“…To quantify the statistical significance, we performed two different tests. First, we used a Gaussian Residual Fitting analysis, as used in other JTEC ERS analyses 23,29,32 . In this method, we subtracted the best-fit model without a specific opacity source from the weighted average spectrum of WASP-39b, isolating the supposed spectral feature.…”

Section: Picaso 30 and Virgamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Atmospheric models fitted to the spectrum have inferred metallicities (amount of heavy elements relative to the host star) from 0.003 -300x solar 3,[15][16][17][18][19][20] , which makes it difficult to ascertain the planet's formation pathway 21,22 . The host, WASP-39, is a G8 type star which displays little photometric variability 23 , and has nearly solar elemental abundance patterns 24 . The quiet host and extended planetary atmosphere make WASP-39b an ideal exoplanet for transmission spectroscopy 25 .…”

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confidence: 99%

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Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRSpec G395H

Alderson

Wakeford

Alam

et al. 2023

Nature

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146

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Measuring the abundances of carbon and oxygen in exoplanet atmospheres is considered a crucial avenue for unlocking the formation and evolution of exoplanetary systems1,2. Access to the chemical inventory of an exoplanet requires high-precision observations, often inferred from individual molecular detections with low-resolution space-based3–5 and high-resolution ground-based6–8 facilities. Here we report the medium-resolution (R ≈ 600) transmission spectrum of an exoplanet atmosphere between 3 and 5 μm covering several absorption features for the Saturn-mass exoplanet WASP-39b (ref. 9), obtained with the Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) G395H grating of JWST. Our observations achieve 1.46 times photon precision, providing an average transit depth uncertainty of 221 ppm per spectroscopic bin, and present minimal impacts from systematic effects. We detect significant absorption from CO2 (28.5σ) and H2O (21.5σ), and identify SO2 as the source of absorption at 4.1 μm (4.8σ). Best-fit atmospheric models range between 3 and 10 times solar metallicity, with sub-solar to solar C/O ratios. These results, including the detection of SO2, underscore the importance of characterizing the chemistry in exoplanet atmospheres and showcase NIRSpec G395H as an excellent mode for time-series observations over this critical wavelength range10.

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Section: Extended Datamentioning

confidence: 92%

Section: Picaso 30 and Virgamentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRSpec G395H

Alderson

Wakeford

Alam

et al. 2023

Nature

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146

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“…NGTS and TESS photometric monitoring of WASP-39A is reported in ref. 23, which finds low modulations at the 0.06% level with no apparent star-spot crossings. With low stellar activity levels, the transit observations are unlikely to be affected by stellar activity.…”

Section: Stellar Activitymentioning

confidence: 97%

Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRSpec PRISM

Rustamkulov

Sing

Mukherjee

et al. 2023

Nature

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164

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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.We observed one transit of WASP-39b on 10 July 2022 with JWST's Near InfraRed Spectrograph (NIRSpec) 9,13 , using the PRISM mode, as part of the JWST Transiting Exoplanet Community Early Release Science Program (ERS Program 1366) (PIs: N. Batalha, J. Bean, K. Stevenson) 10,11 . These observations cover the 0.5-5.5µm wavelength range at a native resolving power of R = λ/∆λ ∼ 20-300. WASP-39b was selected for this JWST ERS Program due to previous space-and ground-based observations revealing strong alkali metal absorption and multiple prominent H 2 O bands 4,6,14,15,16 , suggesting strong signal-to-noise could be obtained with JWST. However, the limited wavelength range of existing transmission spectra (0.3-1.65µm, combined with two wide photometric Spitzer channels at 3.6 and 4.5µm) left several important questions unresolved. Previous estimates of WASP-39b's atmospheric metallicity-a measure of the relative abundance of all gases heavier than hydrogen or helium-vary by four orders of magnitude 6,16,17,18,19,20 . Accurate determinations of metallicity can elucidate formation pathways and provide greater insight into the planet's history 21 . The JWST NIRSpec PRISM observations we present here offer a more detailed view into WASP-39b's atmospheric composition than has previously been possible (see ref. 21 for an initial infrared analysis of this data).We obtained time-series spectroscopy over 8.23 hours centered around the transit event to extract the wavelength-dependent absorption by the planet's atmosphere-i.e., the transmission spectrum, which probes the planet's day-night terminator region near millibar pressures. We used NIRSpec PRISM in Bright Object Time Series (BOTS) mode. WASP-39 is a bright, nearby, relatively inactive 23 G7 type star with an effective tempe...

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“…JWST observations of exoplanet atmospheres have started to reveal absorption by carbon-and oxygen-bearing species at unprecedented precision. Recent measurements of the Saturnmass hot Jupiter WASP-39b (Faedi et al 2011) showed the definitive detection of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ; Alderson et al 2023;Rustamkulov et al 2023; The JWST Transiting Exoplanet Community Early Release Science Team et al 2023) and water (H 2 O; Ahrer et al 2023;Alderson et al 2023;Feinstein et al 2023;Rustamkulov et al 2023), with additional absorption from photochemically generated SO 2 (Tsai et al 2022;Alderson et al 2023;Rustamkulov et al 2023). The lowresolution, R ∼ 100, Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) PRISM observations additionally hinted at the presence of broadband absorption due to carbon monoxide (CO; Rustamkulov et al 2023).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detection of Carbon Monoxide’s 4.6 Micron Fundamental Band Structure in WASP-39b’s Atmosphere with JWST NIRSpec G395H

Grant

Lothringer

Wakeford

et al. 2023

ApJL

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Carbon monoxide (CO) is predicted to be the dominant carbon-bearing molecule in giant planet atmospheres and, along with water, is important for discerning the oxygen and therefore carbon-to-oxygen ratio of these planets. The fundamental absorption mode of CO has a broad, double-branched structure composed of many individual absorption lines from 4.3 to 5.1 μm, which can now be spectroscopically measured with JWST. Here we present a technique for detecting the rotational sub-band structure of CO at medium resolution with the NIRSpec G395H instrument. We use a single transit observation of the hot Jupiter WASP-39b from the JWST Transiting Exoplanet Community Early Release Science (JTEC ERS) program at the native resolution of the instrument (R ∼ 2700) to resolve the CO absorption structure. We robustly detect absorption by CO, with an increase in transit depth of 264 ± 68 ppm, in agreement with the predicted CO contribution from the best-fit model at low resolution. This detection confirms our theoretical expectations that CO is the dominant carbon-bearing molecule in WASP-39b’s atmosphere and further supports the conclusions of low C/O and supersolar metallicities presented in the JTEC ERS papers for WASP-39b.

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Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRCam

Cited by 112 publications

References 127 publications

Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRSpec G395H

Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRSpec G395H

Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRSpec PRISM

Detection of Carbon Monoxide’s 4.6 Micron Fundamental Band Structure in WASP-39b’s Atmosphere with JWST NIRSpec G395H

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