CRIRES<sup>+</sup> and ESPRESSO Reveal an Atmosphere Enriched in Volatiles Relative to Refractories on the Ultrahot Jupiter WASP-121b

Abstract One of the outstanding goals of the planetary science community is to measure the present-day atmospheric composition of planets and link this back to formation. As giant planets are formed by accreting gas, ices, and rocks, constraining the relative amounts of these components is critical to understand their formation and evolution. For most known planets, including the solar system giants, this is difficult as they reside in a temperature regime where only volatile elements (e.g., C, O) can be measured, while refractories (e.g., Fe, Ni) are condensed to deep layers of the atmosphere where they cannot be remotely probed. With temperatures allowing for even rock-forming elements to be in the gas phase, ultrahot Jupiter atmospheres provide a unique opportunity to simultaneously probe the volatile and refractory content of giant planets. Here, we directly measure and obtain bounded constraints on the abundances of volatile C and O as well as refractory Fe and Ni on the ultrahot giant exoplanet WASP-121b. We find that ice-forming elements are comparatively enriched relative to rock-forming elements, potentially indicating that WASP-121b formed in a volatile-rich environment much farther away from the star than where it is currently located. The simultaneous constraint of ice and rock elements in the atmosphere of WASP-121b provides insights into the composition of giant planets otherwise unattainable from solar system observations.

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Publication Details

Journal
The Astronomical Journal
Published
2024-12-06
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ad8b28
Citations
28
Primary Topic
Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
9.28

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article

CRIRES+ and ESPRESSO Reveal an Atmosphere Enriched in Volatiles Relative to Refractories on the Ultrahot Jupiter WASP-121b

Peter Smith, H. J. Hoeijmakers, Louis-Philippe Coulombe, B. Thorsbro et al.
28 citations
The Astronomical Journal
Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
9.28
article

CRIRES+ and ESPRESSO Reveal an Atmosphere Enriched in Volatiles Relative to Refractories on the Ultrahot Jupiter WASP-121b

Peter Smith, H. J. Hoeijmakers, Louis-Philippe Coulombe, B. Thorsbro, Bibiana Prinoth, Romain Allart, Joshua D. Lothringer, A. Lavail, Stefan Pelletier, Björn Benneke, Yayaati Chachan, Vivien Parmentier, Nicholas W. Borsato, Luc Bazinet
article en
28 citations

Abstract

Abstract One of the outstanding goals of the planetary science community is to measure the present-day atmospheric composition of planets and link this back to formation. As giant planets are formed by accreting gas, ices, and rocks, constraining the relative amounts of these components is critical to understand their formation and evolution. For most known planets, including the solar system giants, this is difficult as they reside in a temperature regime where only volatile elements (e.g., C, O) can be measured, while refractories (e.g., Fe, Ni) are condensed to deep layers of the atmosphere where they cannot be remotely probed. With temperatures allowing for even rock-forming elements to be in the gas phase, ultrahot Jupiter atmospheres provide a unique opportunity to simultaneously probe the volatile and refractory content of giant planets. Here, we directly measure and obtain bounded constraints on the abundances of volatile C and O as well as refractory Fe and Ni on the ultrahot giant exoplanet WASP-121b. We find that ice-forming elements are comparatively enriched relative to rock-forming elements, potentially indicating that WASP-121b formed in a volatile-rich environment much farther away from the star than where it is currently located. The simultaneous constraint of ice and rock elements in the atmosphere of WASP-121b provides insights into the composition of giant planets otherwise unattainable from solar system observations.

The Astronomical JournalVol. 169(1)
University of Geneva (CH), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), Space Telescope Science Institute (US), Université Fédérale de Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées (FR), University of California, Santa Cruz (US), Lund University (SE), Utah Valley University (US), Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur (FR), European Southern Observatory (CL), Montreal Clinical Research Institute (CA), Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie (FR), McGill University (CA), Arizona State University (US), Université de Montréal (CA), The University of Tokyo (JP), Macquarie University (AU)
European Southern Observatory, Uppsala Universitet
Openalex Percentile: Top 2%
Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
9.28
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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