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Bibiana Prinoth

Bibiana Prinoth

Doctoral student

Bibiana Prinoth

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

Author

  • Stefan Pelletier
  • Björn Benneke
  • Yayaati Chachan
  • Luc Bazinet
  • Romain Allart
  • H. Jens Hoeijmakers
  • Alexis Lavail
  • Bibiana Prinoth
  • Louis Philippe Coulombe
  • Joshua D. Lothringer
  • Vivien Parmentier
  • Peter Smith
  • Nicholas Borsato
  • Brian Thorsbro
Show all

Summary, in English

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.

Department/s

  • eSSENCE: The e-Science Collaboration
  • Astrophysics

Publishing year

2025-01-01

Language

English

Publication/Series

Astronomical Journal

Volume

169

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

IOP Publishing

Topic

  • Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0004-6256