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A high C/O ratio and weak thermal inversion in the atmosphere of exoplanet WASP-12b
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Madhusudhan, Nikku, Harrington, Joseph, Stevenson, Kevin B., Nymeyer, Sarah, Campo, Christopher J., Wheatley, P. J., Deming, Drake, Blecic, Jasmina, Hardy, Ryan A., Lust, Nate B., Anderson, David R., Collier-Cameron, Andrew, Britt, Christopher B. T., Bowman, William C., Hebb, Leslie, Hellier, Coel, Maxted, Pierre F. L., Pollacco, Don and West, Richard G. (2011) A high C/O ratio and weak thermal inversion in the atmosphere of exoplanet WASP-12b. Nature, Vol.469 (No.7328). pp. 64-67. doi:10.1038/nature09602
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09602
Abstract
The carbon-to-oxygen ratio (C/O) in a planet provides critical information about its primordial origins and subsequent evolution. A primordial C/O greater than 0.8 causes a carbide-dominated interior, as opposed to the silicate-dominated composition found on Earth; the atmosphere can also differ from those in the Solar System(. The solar C/O is 0.54. Here we report an analysis of dayside multi-wavelength photometry of the transiting hot Jupiter WASP-12b that reveals C/O >= 1 in its atmosphere. The atmosphere is abundant in CO. It is depleted in water vapour and enhanced in methane, each by more than two orders of magnitude compared to a solar-abundance chemical-equilibrium model at the expected temperatures. We also find that the extremely irradiated atmosphere (T > 2,500 K) of WASP-12b lacks a prominent thermal inversion (or stratosphere) and has very efficient day-night energy circulation. The absence of a strong thermal inversion is in stark contrast to theoretical predictions for the most highly irradiated hot-Jupiter atmospheres.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subjects: | Q Science > QB Astronomy Q Science > QC Physics |
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Science > Physics | ||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Planets -- Atmospheres , Extrasolar planets, Atmospheric thermodynamics | ||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Nature | ||||
| Publisher: | Nature Publishing Group | ||||
| ISSN: | 0028-0836 | ||||
| Official Date: | 6 January 2011 | ||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | Vol.469 | ||||
| Number: | No.7328 | ||||
| Number of Pages: | 4 | ||||
| Page Range: | pp. 64-67 | ||||
| DOI: | 10.1038/nature09602 | ||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||
| Funder: | United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Jet Propulsion Laboratory (U.S.) (JPL) |
Data sourced from Thomson Reuters' Web of Knowledge
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