Thermal emission from the Earth-sized exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 b using JWST

Thomas P. Greene (), Taylor J. Bell, Elsa Ducrot, Achrène Dyrek, Pierre-Olivier Lagage and Jonathan J. Fortney
Additional contact information
Thomas P. Greene: NASA Ames Research Center
Taylor J. Bell: NASA Ames Research Center
Elsa Ducrot: Université Paris-Saclay, Université Paris-Cité, CEA, CNRS
Achrène Dyrek: Université Paris-Saclay, Université Paris-Cité, CEA, CNRS
Pierre-Olivier Lagage: Université Paris-Saclay, Université Paris-Cité, CEA, CNRS
Jonathan J. Fortney: University of California, Santa Cruz

Nature, 2023, vol. 618, issue 7963, 39-42

Abstract: Abstract The TRAPPIST-1 system is remarkable for its seven planets that are similar in size, mass, density and stellar heating to the rocky planets Venus, Earth and Mars in the Solar System1. All the TRAPPIST-1 planets have been observed with transmission spectroscopy using the Hubble or Spitzer space telescopes, but no atmospheric features have been detected or strongly constrained2–5. TRAPPIST-1 b is the closest planet to the M-dwarf star of the system, and it receives four times as much radiation as Earth receives from the Sun. This relatively large amount of stellar heating suggests that its thermal emission may be measurable. Here we present photometric secondary eclipse observations of the Earth-sized exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 b using the F1500W filter of the mid-infrared instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). We detect the secondary eclipses in five separate observations with 8.7σ confidence when all data are combined. These measurements are most consistent with re-radiation of the incident flux of the TRAPPIST-1 star from only the dayside hemisphere of the planet. The most straightforward interpretation is that there is little or no planetary atmosphere redistributing radiation from the host star and also no detectable atmospheric absorption of carbon dioxide (CO2) or other species.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05951-7 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:618:y:2023:i:7963:d:10.1038_s41586-023-05951-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-05951-7

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().