Absence of a thick atmosphere on the terrestrial exoplanet LHS 3844b

Laura Kreidberg (), Daniel D. B. Koll, Caroline Morley, Renyu Hu, Laura Schaefer, Drake Deming, Kevin B. Stevenson, Jason Dittmann, Andrew Vanderburg, David Berardo, Xueying Guo, Keivan Stassun, Ian Crossfield, David Charbonneau, David W. Latham, Abraham Loeb, George Ricker, Sara Seager and Roland Vanderspek
Additional contact information
Laura Kreidberg: Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
Daniel D. B. Koll: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Caroline Morley: The University of Texas at Austin
Renyu Hu: California Institute of Technology
Laura Schaefer: Stanford University
Drake Deming: University of Maryland
Kevin B. Stevenson: Space Telescope Science Institute
Jason Dittmann: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Andrew Vanderburg: The University of Texas at Austin
David Berardo: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Xueying Guo: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Keivan Stassun: Vanderbilt University
Ian Crossfield: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
David Charbonneau: Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
David W. Latham: Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
Abraham Loeb: Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
George Ricker: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Sara Seager: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Roland Vanderspek: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Nature, 2019, vol. 573, issue 7772, 87-90

Abstract: Abstract Most known terrestrial planets orbit small stars with radii less than 60 per cent of that of the Sun1,2. Theoretical models predict that these planets are more vulnerable to atmospheric loss than their counterparts orbiting Sun-like stars3–6. To determine whether a thick atmosphere has survived on a small planet, one approach is to search for signatures of atmospheric heat redistribution in its thermal phase curve7–10. Previous phase curve observations of the super-Earth 55 Cancri e (1.9 Earth radii) showed that its peak brightness is offset from the substellar point (latitude and longitude of 0 degrees)—possibly indicative of atmospheric circulation11. Here we report a phase curve measurement for the smaller, cooler exoplanet LHS 3844b, a 1.3-Earth-radii world in an 11-hour orbit around the small nearby star LHS 3844. The observed phase variation is symmetric and has a large amplitude, implying a dayside brightness temperature of 1,040 ± 40 kelvin and a nightside temperature consistent with zero kelvin (at one standard deviation). Thick atmospheres with surface pressures above 10 bar are ruled out by the data (at three standard deviations), and less-massive atmospheres are susceptible to erosion by stellar wind. The data are well fitted by a bare-rock model with a low Bond albedo (lower than 0.2 at two standard deviations). These results support theoretical predictions that hot terrestrial planets orbiting small stars may not retain substantial atmospheres.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1497-4 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:573:y:2019:i:7772:d:10.1038_s41586-019-1497-4

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

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1497-4

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 ().