17 May 2024 | Luis Welbanks, Taylor J. Bell, Thomas G. Beatty, Michael R. Line, Kazumasa Ohno, Jonathan J. Fortney, Everett Schlawin, Thomas P. Greene, Emily Rauscher, Peter McGill, Matthew Murphy, Vivien Parmentier, Yao Tang, Isaac Edelman, Sagnick Mukherjee, Lindsey S. Wiser, Pierre-Olivier Lagage, Achrène Dyrek, Kenneth E. Arnold
This paper presents the panchromatic transmission spectrum of the exoplanet WASP-107b, a Neptune-sized planet with an approximate temperature of 750 K and a low density. Using observations from Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the authors detect spectroscopic features of various molecules such as H₂O, CH₄, CO, CO₂, SO₂, and NH₃. These detections provide constraints on the atmospheric metallicity, vertical mixing strength, and internal temperature. The high internal temperature, estimated to be >345 K, suggests tidal heating acting on a Neptune-like internal structure, which can explain the planet's large radius and low density. The findings indicate that eccentricity-driven tidal heating is a critical process governing atmospheric chemistry and interior structure in cool super-Earth-to-Saturn mass exoplanets. The study also discusses the implications for the planet's core-to-envelope mass ratio and the challenges it poses to the standard core-accretion paradigm of planet formation. The results highlight the importance of broadband spectral coverage in characterizing exoplanet atmospheres and the potential for future studies to further disentangle the effects of disequilibrium chemistry and interior-atmosphere interactions.This paper presents the panchromatic transmission spectrum of the exoplanet WASP-107b, a Neptune-sized planet with an approximate temperature of 750 K and a low density. Using observations from Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the authors detect spectroscopic features of various molecules such as H₂O, CH₄, CO, CO₂, SO₂, and NH₃. These detections provide constraints on the atmospheric metallicity, vertical mixing strength, and internal temperature. The high internal temperature, estimated to be >345 K, suggests tidal heating acting on a Neptune-like internal structure, which can explain the planet's large radius and low density. The findings indicate that eccentricity-driven tidal heating is a critical process governing atmospheric chemistry and interior structure in cool super-Earth-to-Saturn mass exoplanets. The study also discusses the implications for the planet's core-to-envelope mass ratio and the challenges it poses to the standard core-accretion paradigm of planet formation. The results highlight the importance of broadband spectral coverage in characterizing exoplanet atmospheres and the potential for future studies to further disentangle the effects of disequilibrium chemistry and interior-atmosphere interactions.