Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21542313w&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #215, #423.13; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.328
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Once astronomers develop the means to directly observe extrasolar Earth-like planets, it may be possible to discriminate between planets with solid and liquid surfaces from the phase light curves of reflected light over a planet's orbit. Recent simulations by Williams and Gaidos (2008 Icarus 195(2): 927-937) show that planets with oceans will appear brighter (fainter) at small (large) phase angles than planets with diffuse-scattering surfaces. In addition, such planets will polarize incident starlight by us much as 70% under idealized conditions. Here we expand the earlier simulations by calculating the effect of a thin Rayleigh atmosphere on the amplitude and polarization of the reflected signal. Naturally the atmospheric backscatter alters the shape and polarization of the lightcurve, but we show that the atmosphere does not begin to mask surface light until optical depth approaches unity. We conclude that a sizeable class of exoplanets with thin atmospheres will unambiguously show evidence of water (or not) from polarization of light reflected by the surface.
Williams Darren M.
Zugger Michael
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