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Title:
Detection of an Extrasolar Planet Atmosphere
Authors:
Charbonneau, David; Brown, Timothy M.; Noyes, Robert W.; Gilliland, Ronald L.
Affiliation:
AA(Department of Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, 105-24, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125; Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 ), AB(High Altitude Observatory/National Center for Atmospheric Research, 3450 Mitchell Lane, Boulder, CO 80307; . The National Center for Atmospheric Research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. ), AC(Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 ), AD(Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 )
Publication:
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 568, Issue 1, pp. 377-384. (ApJ Homepage)
Publication Date:
03/2002
Origin:
UCP
Astronomy Keywords:
Stars: Binaries: Eclipsing, Stars: Planetary Systems, Stars: Atmospheres, Stars: Individual: Henry Draper Number: HD 209458, Techniques: Photometric
DOI:
10.1086/338770
Bibliographic Code:
2002ApJ...568..377C

Abstract

We report high-precision spectrophotometric observations of four planetary transits of HD 209458, in the region of the sodium resonance doublet at 589.3 nm. We find that the photometric dimming during transit in a bandpass centered on the sodium feature is deeper by (2.32+/-0.57)×10-4 relative to simultaneous observations of the transit in adjacent bands. We interpret this additional dimming as absorption from sodium in the planetary atmosphere, as recently predicted from several theoretical modeling efforts. Our model for a cloudless planetary atmosphere with a solar abundance of sodium in atomic form predicts more sodium absorption than we observe. There are several possibilities that may account for this reduced amplitude, including reaction of atomic sodium into molecular gases and/or condensates, photoionization of sodium by the stellar flux, a low primordial abundance of sodium, and the presence of clouds high in the atmosphere. Based on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (HST), obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.
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