Thermal Emission Spectra of Post-Giant-Impact Earths

Details Thermal Emission Spectra of Post-Giant-Impact Earths Thermal Emission Spectra of Post-Giant-Impact Earths

Dec 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufm.p21c1672m&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #P21C-1672

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[0343] Atmospheric Composition And Structure / Planetary Atmospheres, [5405] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Atmospheres, [5455] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Origin And Evolution

Scientific paper

The final assembly of terrestrial planets in our Solar System is now universally thought to have occurred through a series of giant impacts--essentially collisions between planets--spread out over some 30-50 million years. It likely takes at least 10 collisions between planets to make a Venus and an Earth, as not every collision results in a merger of worlds. In the aftermath of one of these collisions the surviving planet is hot and can remain hot for a long time. As first proposed by Stern (1994) the thermal emission of an Earth-mass planet caught in the afterglow of such a giant impact renders the planet far more detectable than at any other time. Given the statistics of giant impacts and the population of nearby young stars, a few such post-impact worlds may be seen by the next generation of ground-based coronagraphic cameras on 30-m class telescopes. Miller-Ricci et al. (2009) presented the first model spectra of such worlds, but considered only a few possible atmospheric compositions. We have now computed the atmospheric composition expected in chemical equilibrium over a molten magma ocean lying at hundreds of bars pressure along with self-consistent radiative-convective temperature profiles for such atmospheres. While major absorbers include the expected water and CO2, other species--including in some cases O2--are also present. We will discuss the surprising atmospheric chemistry and emission spectra of such planets and will consider the prospects for detecting and characterizing these extreme worlds. If ever detected such planets would provide new insights into the physical conditions of the early Earth.

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