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Jupiter's atmosphere

The incredible and intricate details of Jupiter's atmosphere, showing storms and clouds, that we one day hope to image on other worlds beyond our Solar System. Image: Seán Doran Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/seandoran

Credit: NASA / SwRI / MSSS / Gerald Eichstädt / Seán Doran

Prof Jayne Birkby

Professor of Astrophysics

Research theme

  • Astronomy and astrophysics
  • Instrumentation
  • Exoplanets and planetary physics

Sub department

  • Astrophysics

Research groups

  • Astronomical instrumentation
  • Exoplanet atmospheres
  • Exoplanets and Stellar Physics
  • Planet formation and dynamics
  • Planetary surfaces
  • Extremely Large Telescope
jayne.birkby@physics.ox.ac.uk
Denys Wilkinson Building, room 761
Personal research page
  • About
  • Books
  • Publications

A weak spectral signature of water vapour in the atmosphere of HD 179949 b at high spectral resolution in the L band

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Oxford University Press 494:1 (2020) 108-119

Authors:

Rebecca K Webb, Matteo Brogi, Siddharth Gandhi, Michael R Line, Jayne L Birkby, Katy L Chubb, Ignas AG Snellen, Sergey N Yurchenko

Abstract:

High-resolution spectroscopy (⁠R⩾20000⁠) is currently the only known method to constrain the orbital solution and atmospheric properties of non-transiting hot Jupiters. It does so by resolving the spectral features of the planet into a forest of spectral lines and directly observing its Doppler shift while orbiting the host star. In this study, we analyse VLT/CRIRES (⁠R=100000⁠) L-band observations of the non-transiting giant planet HD 179949 b centred around 3.5 μm⁠. We observe a weak (3.0σ, or S/N = 4.8) spectral signature of H2O in absorption contained within the radial velocity of the planet at superior-conjunction, with a mild dependence on the choice of line list used for the modelling. Combining this data with previous observations in the K band, we measure a detection significance of 8.4 σ for an atmosphere that is most consistent with a shallow lapse-rate, solar C/O ratio, and with CO and H2O being the only major sources of opacity in this wavelength range. As the two sets of data were taken 3 yr apart, this points to the absence of strong radial-velocity anomalies due, e.g. to variability in atmospheric circulation. We measure a projected orbital velocity for the planet of KP = (145.2 ± 2.0) km s−1 (1σ) and improve the error bars on this parameter by ∼70 per cent. However, we only marginally tighten constraints on orbital inclination (⁠66.2+3.7−3.1 deg) and planet mass (⁠0.963+0.036−0.031 Jupiter masses), due to the dominant uncertainties of stellar mass and semimajor axis. Follow ups of radial-velocity planets are thus crucial to fully enable their accurate characterization via high-resolution spectroscopy.
More details from the publisher
Details from ORA

A weak spectral signature of water vapour in the atmosphere of HD 179949 b at high spectral resolution in the L-band

(2020)

Authors:

Rebecca K Webb, Matteo Brogi, Siddharth Gandhi, Michael R Line, Jayne L Birkby, Katy L Chubb, Ignas AG Snellen, Sergey N Yurchenko
More details from the publisher

ESA Voyage 2050 White Paper: Detecting life outside our solar system with a large high-contrast-imaging mission

arXiv e-prints (2019) arXiv:1908.01803-arXiv:1908.01803

Authors:

Ignas Snellen, Simon Albrecht, Guillem Anglada-Escude, Isabelle Baraffe, Pierre Baudoz, Willy Benz, Jean-Luc Beuzit, Beth Biller, Jayne Birkby, Anthony Boccaletti, Roy van Boekel, Jos de Boer, Matteo Brogi, Lars Buchhave, Ludmila Carone, Mark Claire, Riccardo Claudi, Brice-Olivier Demory, Jean-Michel Desert, Silvano Desidera, Scott Gaudi, Raffaele Gratton, Michael Gillon, John Lee Grenfell, Olivier Guyon, Thomas Henning, Sasha Hinkley, Elsa Huby, Markus Janson, Christiane Helling, Kevin Heng, Markus Kasper, Christoph Keller, Matthew Kenworthy, Oliver Krause, Laura Kreidberg, Nikku Madhusudhan, Anne-Marie Lagrange, Ralf Launhardt, Tim Lenton, Manuel Lopez-Puertas, Anne-Lise Maire, Nathan Mayne, Victoria Meadows, Bertrand Mennesson, Giuseppina Micela, Yamila Miguel, Julien Milli, Michiel Min, Ernst de Mooij, David Mouillet, Mamadou N’Diaye, Valentina D’Orazi, Enric Palle, Isabella Pagano, Giampaolo Piotto, Didier Queloz, Heike Rauer, Ignasi Ribas, Garreth Ruane, Franck Selsis, Frans Snik, Alessandro Sozzetti, Daphne Stam, Christopher Stark, Arthur Vigan, Pieter de Visser

Detecting Earth-like Biosignatures on Rocky Exoplanets around Nearby Stars with Ground-based Extremely Large Telescopes

\baas 51 (2019) 3

Authors:

Mercedes Lopez-Morales, Thayne Currie, Johanna Teske, Eric Gaidos, Eliza Kempton, Jared Males, Nikole Lewis, Benjamin V Rackham, Sagi Ben-Ami, Jayne Birkby, David Charbonneau, Laird Close, Jeff Crane, Courtney Dressing, Cynthia Froning, Yasuhiro Hasegawa, Quinn Konopacky, Ravi K Kopparapu, Dimitri Mawet, Bertrand Mennesson, Ramses Ramirez, Deno Stelter, Andrew Szentgyorgyi, Ji Wang, Munazza Alam, Karen Collins, Andrea Dupree, Margarita Karovska, James Kirk, Amit Levi, Chima McGruder, Chris Packman, Sarah Rugheimer, Surangkhana Rukdee

Directly Imaging Rocky Planets from the Ground

\baas 51 (2019) 3

Authors:

Ben Mazin, E Artigau, V Bailey, C Baranec, C Beichman, B Benneke, J Birkby, T Brandt, J Chilcote, M Chun, L Close, T Currie, I Crossfield, R Dekany, JR Delorme, C Dong, R Dong, R Doyon, C Dressing, M Fitzgerald, J Fortney, R Frazin, E Gaidos, O Guyon, J Hashimoto, L Hillenbrand

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