Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRSpec PRISM

Zafar Rustamkulov (1) , David Sing (1) , Sagnick Mukherjee (2) , Erin M. May (3) , James Kirk (4) , Everett Schlawin (5) , Michael R. Line (6) , Caroline Piaulet (7) , Aarynn L. Carter (2) , Natasha E. Batalha (8) , Jayesh M. Goyal (9) , Mercedes López-Morales (10) , Joshua D. Lothringer (11) , Ryan J. Macdonald (12, 13) , Sarah E. Moran (14) , Kevin B. Stevenson (3) , Hannah R. Wakeford (15) , Néstor Espinoza (16) , Jacob L. Bean (17) , Natalie M. Batalha (2) , Björn Benneke (7) , Zachory K. Berta-Thompson (18) , Ian J.M. Crossfield (19) , Peter Gao (20) , Laura Kreidberg (21) , Diana K. Powell (10) , Patricio E. Cubillos (22) , Neale P. Gibson (23) , Jérémy Leconte (24) , Karan Molaverdikhani (25, 26) , Nikolay K. Nikolov (16) , Vivien Parmentier (27) , Pierre Alexis Roy (7) , Jake Taylor (28) , Jake D. Turner (29) , Peter J. Wheatley (30) , Keshav Aggarwal (31) , Eva Maria Ahrer (30) , Munazza K. Alam (32) , Lili Alderson (15) , Natalie H. Allen (1) , Agnibha Banerjee (33) , Saugata Barat (34) , David Barrado (35) , Joanna K. Barstow (33) , Taylor J. Bell (36) , Jasmina Blecic (37) , Jonathan Brande (19) , Sarah L. Casewell (38) , Quentin Changeat (16, 39) , Katy L. Chubb (40) , Nicolas Crouzet (41) , Tansu Daylan (42) , Leen Decin (43) , J. Désert (34) , Thomas Mikal-Evans (44) , Adina D. Feinstein (17) , Laura S. Flagg (13) , Jonathan J. Fortney (45) , Joseph Harrington (46) , Kevin Heng (25) , Yucian Hong (13) , Renyu Hu (47) , Nicolas Iro , Tiffany Kataria , Eliza Miller Ricci Kempton , Jessica E. Krick , Monika A. Lendl , Jorge Lillo-Box , Amy J. Louca , Jacob Lustig-Yaeger , Luigi Mancini , Megan Mansfield , Nathan J. Mayne , Yamila Miguel , Giuseppe Morello , Kazumasa Ohno , Enric Palle , Dominique J.M. Petit Dit de la Roche , Benjamin V. Rackham , Michael C. Radica , Lakeisha Ramos-Rosado , Seth L. Redfield , Laura K. Rogers , Evgenya L. Shkolnik , J. Southworth , Johanna K. Teske , Pascal Tremblin (48) , Gregory S. Tucker , Olivia Venot (49) , William C. Waalkes , Luis Welbanks , Xi Zhang , Sebastian Zieba

1 JHU - Johns Hopkins University
2 UC Santa Cruz - University of California [Santa Cruz]
3 APL - Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory [Laurel, MD]
4 Imperial College London
5 Steward Observatory
6 SESE - ASU School of Earth and Space Exploration
7 Department of Physics [Montréal]
8 ARC - NASA Ames Research Center
9 NISER - National Institute of Science Education and Research
10 CfA - Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
11 UVU - Utah Valley University
12 Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan
13 Carl Sagan Institute
14 LPL - Lunar and Planetary Laboratory [Tucson]
15 H. H. Wills Physics Laboratory [Bristol]
16 STSci - Space Telescope Science Institute
17 Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics [Chicago]
18 Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences [Boulder]
19 Department of Physics and Astronomy [Lawrence, Kansas]
20 Carnegie Earth and Planets Laboratory
21 MPIA - Max Planck Institute for Astronomy
22 INAF/Osservatorio Astronomico di Torino, Turin, Italy
23 Trinity College Dublin
24 LAB - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Bordeaux [Pessac]
25 University Observatory Munich, Ludwig-Maximillians University Munich
26 LMU - Ludwig Maximilian University [Munich] = Ludwig Maximilians Universität München
27 OCA - Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur
28 University of Oxford
29 Cornell University [New York]
30 University of Warwick [Coventry]
31 IITI - Indian Institute of Technology Indore
32 Observatories [Carnegie Institution]
33 OU - The Open University [Milton Keynes]
34 AI PANNEKOEK - Astronomical Institute Anton Pannekoek
35 CSIC - Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas [España] = Spanish National Research Council [Spain]
36 BAER - Bay Area Environmental Research Institute
37 New York University [Abu Dhabi]
38 University of Leicester
39 ESA - European Space Agency (Baltimore) Space Telescope Science Institute
40 University of St Andrews [Scotland]
41 Leiden Observatory [Leiden]
42 DPPU - Department of Physics, Princeton University
43 UCL - Université Catholique de Louvain = Catholic University of Louvain
44 Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy
45 Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics [UCSC Santa Cruz]
46 FSI - Florida Space Institute [Orlando]
47 CALTECH - California Institute of Technology
48 MDLS - Maison de la Simulation
49 LISA (UMR_7583) - Laboratoire Interuniversitaire des Systèmes Atmosphériques

Transmission spectroscopy of exoplanets has revealed signatures of water vapour, aerosols and alkali metals in a few dozen exoplanet atmospheres. However, these previous inferences with the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes were hindered by the observations’ relatively narrow wavelength range and spectral resolving power, which precluded the unambiguous identification of other chemical species—in particular the primary carbon-bearing molecules. Here we report a broad-wavelength 0.5–5.5 µm atmospheric transmission spectrum of WASP-39b, a 1,200 K, roughly Saturn-mass, Jupiter-radius exoplanet, measured with the JWST NIRSpec’s PRISM mode as part of the JWST Transiting Exoplanet Community Early Release Science Team Program10–12. We robustly detect several chemical species at high significance, including Na (19σ), H$_2$O (33σ), CO$_2$ (28σ) and CO (7σ). The non-detection of CH$_4$, combined with a strong CO$_2$ feature, favours atmospheric models with a super-solar atmospheric metallicity. An unanticipated absorption feature at 4 µm is best explained by SO$_2$ (2.7σ), which could be a tracer of atmospheric photochemistry. These observations demonstrate JWST’s sensitivity to a rich diversity of exoplanet compositions and chemical processes.

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Zafar Rustamkulov, David Sing, Sagnick Mukherjee, Erin M. May, James Kirk, et al.. Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRSpec PRISM. Nature, 2023, 614 (7949), pp.659-663. ⟨10.1038/s41586-022-05677-y⟩. ⟨hal-04069316⟩