A JWST Transit of a Jupiter Analog. I. Constraints on the Oblateness of Kepler-167 e

Abstract In 2024 October, JWST observed a transit of Kepler-167 e, a Jupiter-analog planet on a 1000+ day orbit. These observations, recorded over a long baseline of nearly 60 hr, were designed to search for signatures of planetary oblateness and/or exomoons comparable to Ganymede. In this first in a series of studies analyzing these data, we report on constraints on Kepler-167 e’s oblateness. We explored a large grid of data reduction pipelines and modeling choices, including a new entirely independent reduction pipeline (“ katahdin ”) and two new treatments for limb darkening. We find that under a Bayesian model comparison framework the data are fit equally well by both spherical and oblate planet models, and that our ability to constrain the oblateness is negatively impacted by the influence of exposure-long trends. Using the most conservative of our posteriors, we place a 95% upper bound on the projected oblateness of f < 0.097, which corresponds to a rotation period of P ≥ 7.11 hr if the planet’s spin axis is aligned with the sky plane. We note, however, that the final bound depends on the choice of reduction pipeline and systematics model, and that our suite of end-to-end analyses produced bounds as low as f < 0.065 at 95%. We conclude that leveraging JWST to make tighter constraints on planetary oblateness will require further investigation into mitigating exposure-long trends and correlated noise.