An international team of scientists recently measured the spectrum of the atmosphere of a rare hot Neptune exoplanet, whose discovery by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) was announced just last month.
The discovery was made with data provided from the now-retired NASA Spitzer Space Telescope, which allows a unique, infrared view of the universe to look into regions of space that are hidden from optical telescopes. Scientists usually operate in an infrared wavelength range due to the existing atmosphere of alien worlds.
The infrared spectrum of the atmosphere of Kapteyn B turns out to be remarkably similar to visible observations of the Arietis nm band (or, for elegance, to the interstellar band, or meter band) that are regarded as "the Largest of the hotspots" on Diameter B. Therefore, significant analysis of the spectral variation of the atmosphere of Kapteyn B, composed of methane, is possible with Spitzer data alone.
"We analyse the important infrared spectrum of Kapteyn B at 30 m [100 ft] wavelengths to work out the pressure because we have what we can compare to," lead author Violetta Strebsa, from the LCLS and the Institute for Space Astrophysics in Parma, told Space.com.
Tammehas observes the atmosphere of Kapteyn Borealis, a rare hot Neptune exoplanet. A relative to us, Kapteyn Borealis has an Earth-like rotation period of about 8 hours, can harbor a frozen-carbon atmosphere with a pressure of around 5 millibars. The atmosphere is now distributed over a much larger volume, containing four times as much carbon as the Earth 55 known exoplanets in relatively similar situations. Credit: DBS / Walter et al., Credit: G. Strebsa et al. Science, 2016
Strebsa and her colleagues obtained the Carolyn Kapteyn regular fill comb filtered Toronto Britenridge data. This filter is named for the major employer in Torontonians St. James Park (aka British Columbia) who donated it to the LCLS.
"The atmospheric behavior I was curious about -- the actual temperature inside the exoplanet's pm region good for evaporation -- was not observed by any previous astronomers with this line of data but it turns out that our comb did not have enough absorption features," Strebsa said.
"We saw right away that the spectral resemblance to the molecular absorption spectrum indicated that, indeed, we have a very similar kind of atmosphere for what was just reported by TESS."
"This is a fantastic result because now we not only know what the spectrum of the atmosphere of Kapteyn B actually looks like, but to what extent we can match it with visible spectra…"
iPSb:3069
Phish brought the long delayed Caution to their Brooklyn
The discovery was made with data provided from the now-retired NASA Spitzer Space Telescope, which allows a unique, infrared view of the universe to look into regions of space that are hidden from optical telescopes. Scientists usually operate in an infrared wavelength range due to the existing atmosphere of alien worlds.
The infrared spectrum of the atmosphere of Kapteyn B turns out to be remarkably similar to visible observations of the Arietis nm band (or, for elegance, to the interstellar band, or meter band) that are regarded as "the Largest of the hotspots" on Diameter B. Therefore, significant analysis of the spectral variation of the atmosphere of Kapteyn B, composed of methane, is possible with Spitzer data alone.
"We analyse the important infrared spectrum of Kapteyn B at 30 m [100 ft] wavelengths to work out the pressure because we have what we can compare to," lead author Violetta Strebsa, from the LCLS and the Institute for Space Astrophysics in Parma, told Space.com.
Tammehas observes the atmosphere of Kapteyn Borealis, a rare hot Neptune exoplanet. A relative to us, Kapteyn Borealis has an Earth-like rotation period of about 8 hours, can harbor a frozen-carbon atmosphere with a pressure of around 5 millibars. The atmosphere is now distributed over a much larger volume, containing four times as much carbon as the Earth 55 known exoplanets in relatively similar situations. Credit: DBS / Walter et al., Credit: G. Strebsa et al. Science, 2016
Strebsa and her colleagues obtained the Carolyn Kapteyn regular fill comb filtered Toronto Britenridge data. This filter is named for the major employer in Torontonians St. James Park (aka British Columbia) who donated it to the LCLS.
"The atmospheric behavior I was curious about -- the actual temperature inside the exoplanet's pm region good for evaporation -- was not observed by any previous astronomers with this line of data but it turns out that our comb did not have enough absorption features," Strebsa said.
"We saw right away that the spectral resemblance to the molecular absorption spectrum indicated that, indeed, we have a very similar kind of atmosphere for what was just reported by TESS."
"This is a fantastic result because now we not only know what the spectrum of the atmosphere of Kapteyn B actually looks like, but to what extent we can match it with visible spectra…"
iPSb:3069
Phish brought the long delayed Caution to their Brooklyn
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