Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2012-02-17
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
submitted to A&A
Scientific paper
Context. Mapping the brightness distribution of exoplanets is the next frontier for exoplanet infrared photometry studies. For tidally-locked hot Jupiters that transit and are eclipsed by their host star with non-zero impact parameter, the first steps are now possible. Aims. The aim is to use eclipse scanning from occultation ingress/egress and phase curve measurements to constrain exoplanet large-scale brightness structure. Methods. We use archived Spitzer/IRAC 8 {\mu}m data of HD189733 in a global MCMC procedure encompassing six transits, eight secondary eclipses, and a phase curve in a two-step analysis. The first step derives the planet-star system parameters. The second step investigates the structure found in eclipse scanning, using the previous planet-star system parameter derivation as Gaussian priors. Results. We find a 5-sigma deviation from the expected occultation ingress/egress shape for a uniform brightness disk, and demonstrate that this is dominated by large-scale brightness structure and not an occultation timing offset due to a non-zero eccentricity. Our analysis yields a 2D brightness temperature distribution showing a large-scale asymmetric hot spot whose finer structure is limited by the data quality and planet orbit geometry. We also present an improved upper limit for eccentricity, e<0.0081 (95% confidence). Conclusions. Reanalysis of archived HD 189733 data revealed brightness structure by using global analysis that mitigated systematics. Future eclipse scanning observations of the same exoplanet at other wavelengths will probe different atmosphere layers, ultimately generating a large-scale 3D map.
Demory Brice-Olivier
Gillon Michael
Seager Sara
Wit Julien de
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