A Warm Spitzer Survey of Atmospheric Circulation Patterns

Details A Warm Spitzer Survey of Atmospheric Circulation Patterns A Warm Spitzer Survey of Atmospheric Circulation Patterns

Sep 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011ess.....2.1201k&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, ESS meeting #2, #12.01

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Scientific paper

The atmospheres of close-in extrasolar planets experience strong, asymmetrically distributed radiative forcing that can potentially lead to dramatic variations in both temperature and composition between the day- and night-side hemispheres. However, secondary eclipse observations only tell us about the properties of the dayside atmosphere, while transmission spectroscopy probes the region around the day-night terminator. By measuring changes in the infrared emission spectra of these planets as a function of orbital phase, we can resolve thermal and compositional gradients in these atmospheres, allowing us to obtain a complete picture of their local properties. The most extensively studied planet to date, HD 189733b, appears to have a relatively modest day-night temperature gradient as seen in the 8 and 24 micron Spitzer bands, suggesting that compositional gradients in this atmosphere are likely to be minimal. We present new, full-orbit phase curves at 3.6 and 4.5 um obtained with warm Spitzer, which we use to construct improved multi-color maps and to constrain variations in the pressure-temperature profile and atmospheric composition as a function of longitude. We also present preliminary results for complementary full-orbit observations of HAT-P-7b in the same bands, and discuss an emerging pattern in which the most highly irradiated (>2000 K) planets appear to undergo a shift towards large day-night temperature gradients, perhaps due to Lorentz braking or other MHD processes.

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