Glints Observed by the EPOXI Mission and Their Value for the Remote Sensing of Exoplanet Surfaces and Atmospheres

Details Glints Observed by the EPOXI Mission and Their Value for the Remote Sensing of Exoplanet Surfaces and Atmospheres Glints Observed by the EPOXI Mission and Their Value for the Remote Sensing of Exoplanet Surfaces and Atmospheres

Oct 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.2707k&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #27.07; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.1061

Biology

Scientific paper

Images of the Earth obtained at the EPOCh part of the EPOXI mission demonstrated glints associated with the terrestrial oceans. It was proposed that this phenomenon might reveal large bodies of water on exoplanets. However, these images show not only the ocean glints (big and fuzzy), but also small bright sparks which happen to be not above the ocean. Some of them can be glints from lakes or rivers. However, some glints cannot be associated with any water basin; sometimes they appear even on the top of the clouds. Most likely, those glints result from the specular reflection from cirrus. Cirrus glints are produced by plate-shaped icy particles that easily get oriented horizontally at their free fall in the atmosphere. Unlike rough and foamy ocean surface that produces the diffuse glints of angular width more than 40 deg., these oriented particles produce a narrow, ɜ deg., and, consequently, bright glints. For Earth-like exoplanets, the cirrus glints may be even more common than ocean(lake) glints. The ocean glints vanish as soon as any scatterers (clouds, aerosol layers, haze) appear above the water. The cirrus are too high in the atmosphere to be camouflaged by any clouds or aerosols.
As well as the ocean glints, cirrus glints are a good evidence of a waterbearing planet. More so, they can be an important source of information about the planet atmosphere. One of the ways to discriminate between ocean and cirrus glints is by observing in the near infrared. In the water vapor absorption bands (e.g. 1.375 micron), the ocean glint gets absorbed by atmospheric water leaving only cirrus glint visible. We consider this and other photometric and polarimetric signatures of the ocean and cirrus glints and show how to utilize them for studying atmosphere and surface of exoplanets.
Supported by NASA Astrobiology Program.

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