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

Feinstein, A.D.; Radica, M.; Welbanks, L.; Murray, C.A.; Ohno, K.; Coulombe, L.-P.; Espinoza, N.; Bean, J.L.; Teske, J.K.; Benneke, B.; Line, M.R.; Rustamkulov, Z.; Saba, A.; Tsiaras, A.; Barstow, J.K.; Fortney, J.J.; Gao, P.; Knutson, H.A.; MacDonald, R.J.; Mikal-Evans, T.; Rackham, B.V.; Taylor, J.; Parmentier, V.; Batalha, N.M.; Berta-Thompson, Z.K.; Carter, A.L.; Changeat, Q.; dos Santos, L.A.; Gibson, N.P.; Goyal, J.M.; Kreidberg, L.; López-Morales, M.; Lothringer, J.D.; Miguel, Y.; Molaverdikhani, K.; Moran, S.E.; Morello, G.; Mukherjee, S.; Sing, D.K.; Stevenson, K.B.; Wakeford, H.R.; Ahrer, E.-M.; Alam, M.K.; Alderson, L.; Allen, N.H.; Batalha, N.E.; Bell, T.J.; Blecic, J.; Brande, J.; Caceres, C.; Casewell, S.L.; Chubb, K.L.; Crossfield, I.J.M.; Crouzet, N.; Cubillos, P.E.; Decin, L.; Désert, J.-M.; Harrington, J.; Heng, K.; Henning, T.; Iro, N.; Kempton, E.M.-R.; Kendrew, S.; Kirk, J.; Krick, J.; Lagage, P.-O.; Lendl, M.; Mancini, L.; Mansfield, M.; May, E.M.; Mayne, N.J.; Nikolov, N.K.; Palle, E.; Petit dit de la Roche, D.J.M.; Piaulet, C.; Powell, D.; Redfield, S.; Rogers, L.K.; Roman, M.T.; Roy, P.-A.; Nixon, M.C.; Schlawin, E.; Tan, X.; Tremblin, P.; Turner, J.D.; Venot, O.; Waalkes, W.C.; Wheatley, P.J.; Zhang, X.

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Author

Feinstein, A.D.
Radica, M.
Welbanks, L.
Murray, C.A.
Ohno, K.
Coulombe, L.-P.
Espinoza, N.
Bean, J.L.
Teske, J.K.
Benneke, B.

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Affiliation

Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona
Steward Observatory, University of Arizona

Issue Date

2023-01-09

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Nature Research

Citation

Feinstein, A.D., Radica, M., Welbanks, L. et al. Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRISS. Nature 614, 670–675 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05674-1

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Nature

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This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.

Abstract

The Saturn-mass exoplanet WASP-39b has been the subject of extensive efforts to determine its atmospheric properties using transmission spectroscopy1–4. However, these efforts have been hampered by modelling degeneracies between composition and cloud properties that are caused by limited data quality5–9. Here we present the transmission spectrum of WASP-39b obtained using the Single-Object Slitless Spectroscopy (SOSS) mode of the Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) instrument on the JWST. This spectrum spans 0.6–2.8 μm in wavelength and shows several water-absorption bands, the potassium resonance doublet and signatures of clouds. The precision and broad wavelength coverage of NIRISS/SOSS allows us to break model degeneracies between cloud properties and the atmospheric composition of WASP-39b, favouring a heavy-element enhancement (‘metallicity’) of about 10–30 times the solar value, a sub-solar carbon-to-oxygen (C/O) ratio and a solar-to-super-solar potassium-to-oxygen (K/O) ratio. The observations are also best explained by wavelength-dependent, non-grey clouds with inhomogeneous coverageof the planet’s terminator. © 2023, The Author(s).

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Open access article

ISSN

0028-0836

PubMed ID

36623550

DOI

10.1038/s41586-022-05674-1

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Final Published Version

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UA Faculty Publications

© 2023 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as © 2023 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.