HST/WFC3 transit observation of GJ1214b Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Berta Z.K.
  2. Charbonneau D.
  3. Desert J.-M.
  4. Miller-Ricci Kempton E.,McCullough P.R.
  5. Burke C.J.
  6. Fortney J.J.
  7. Irwin J.
  8. Nutzman P.
  9. Homeier D.
  10. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

Capitalizing on the observational advantage offered by its tiny M dwarf host, we present Hubble Space Telescope/Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) grism measurements of the transmission spectrum of the super-Earth exoplanet GJ1214b. These are the first published WFC3 observations of a transiting exoplanet atmosphere. After correcting for a ramp-like instrumental systematic, we achieve nearly photon-limited precision in these observations, finding the transmission spectrum of GJ1214b to be flat between 1.1 and 1.7{mu}m. Inconsistent with a cloud-free solar composition atmosphere at 8.2{sigma}, the measured achromatic transit depth most likely implies a large mean molecular weight for GJ1214b's outer envelope. A dense atmosphere rules out bulk compositions for GJ1214b that explain its large radius by the presence of a very low density gas layer surrounding the planet. High-altitude clouds can alternatively explain the flat transmission spectrum, but they would need to be optically thick up to 10 mbar or consist of particles with a range of sizes approaching 1 {mu}m in diameter.

Keywords
  1. Solar system planets
  2. Multiple stars
  3. Spectrophotometry
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2012ApJ...747...35B
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/ApJ/747/35
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/747/35
Document Object Identifer DOI
doi:10.26093/cds/vizier.17470035

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https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/747/35
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/747/35
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History

2013-10-24T10:01:25Z
Resource record created
2013-10-24T10:01:25Z
Created
2017-06-27T06:38:45Z
Updated

Contact

Name
CDS support team
Postal Address
CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
E-Mail
cds-question@unistra.fr