![]() “Since they are the two most abundant elements in the universe, after hydrogen and helium, that gives us a very complete picture of the content of the atmosphere.” “We measured the abundance of all major molecules that contain either carbon or oxygen,” explains Pelletier. This exquisite dataset allowed the researchers to make a detailed analysis of the molecular content of the hot Jupiter's atmosphere. The team spent 20 hours observing the exoplanet with SPIRou between April 2019 and June 2020. “This spectropolarimeter can analyze the planet’s thermal light - the light emitted by the planet itself - in an unprecedentedly large range of colours, and with a resolution that allows for the identification of many molecules at once: water, carbon monoxide, methane, etc.” explains iREx researcher Neil Cook, a co-author that is an expert on the SPIRou instrument. ![]() The observations allow astronomers to study the object’s characteristics- temperature, motion, and in the case of Tau Boötis b, the composition of the planet’s atmosphere. SPIRou is an infrared spectropolarimeter which takes the light from a single object and breaks the light into its component infrared colors colors our eyes are unable to detect. Tau Boötis b is one of the first planets studied with SPIRou, which started observations at CFHT in 2018. For example, the low amount of water on Tau boötis b could mean that our own Jupiter is drier than we had previously thought.” Studying exoplanets provides a better way to understand our own giant planets. Thus, we have a very poor knowledge of their abundance. “Some molecules such as water are frozen and hidden deep in their atmospheres. “In our Solar System, Jupiter and Saturn are much colder,” continues Benneke. The extreme temperature of hot Jupiters allows most molecules in their atmospheres to be in gaseous form and detectable with current instruments, enabling astronomers to precisely measure the content of their atmospheres. The key to revealing the formation location and mechanism of giant planets is imprinted in their atmospheric composition. “The composition of the planet gives clues as to where and how this giant planet formed.” “Hot Jupiters like Tau Boötis b offer an unprecedented opportunity to probe giant planet formation”, said co-author Björn Benneke, astrophysics professor and Pelletier’s PhD supervisor at Université de Montréal. ![]() Studying hot Jupiters to better understand Jupiter and Saturn “These are the kinds of observations that the instrument was designed for and we look forward to seeing what SPIRou uncovers next.” Luc Arnold, CFHT resident astronomer and SPIRou instrument scientist. “SPIRou’s high resolution and infrared wavelength range open a new window into the atmosphere of planets likeTau Boötis b,” says Dr. The planet’s atmospheric composition has been studied a handful of times before, but never with an instrument as powerful as SPIRou. The radial velocity method studies the slight back-and-forth motion of a star generated by the gravitational tug of its planet. Its host star, Tau Boötis, located 51 light years from Earth is 40% more massive than the sun and is one of the brightest known planet-bearing stars in the sky.ĭiscovered in 1996, Tau Boötis b was one of the first exoplanets ever detected thanks to the radial velocity method. Tau Boötis b is a planet that is 6.24 times more massive than Jupiter and 8 times closer to its parent star than Mercury to the Sun. Their detailed analysis, presented in a paper published today in the Astronomical Journal, shows that the atmosphere of the gaseous planet contains carbon monoxide, as expected, but surprisingly did not identify water, a molecule that was anticipated to be prevalent and should be easily detectable with SPIRou. Using the SPIRou spectropolarimeter at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii, a team led by Stefan Pelletier, a PhD student at Université de Montréal's Institute for Research on Exoplanets (iREx), studied the atmosphere of the gas giant exoplanet Tau Boötis b, a scorching hot world that takes a mere three days to orbit its host star. Artistic rendition of the exoplanet Tau Boötis b and its host star, Tau Boötis.Īn international team of astronomers has measured the most precise composition of the hot Jupiter Tau Boötis b’s atmosphere, providing us with a better understanding of giant planets.
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