The JWST Early Release Science Program for Direct Observations of Exoplanetary Systems I: High-contrast Imaging of the Exoplanet HIP 65426 b from 2 to 16 µm
Henning, Thomas; Fortney, Jonathan J.; Carter, Aarynn L.; Moran, Sarah E.; Currie, Thayne; Schneider, Glenn; Matthews, Brenda C.; Wolff, Schuyler G.; Chen, Christine H.; Kalas, Paul; Fitzgerald, Michael P.; Gonzales, Eileen C.; Hines, Dean C.; Hinkley, Sasha; Macintosh, Bruce; Mazoyer, Johan; Metchev, Stanimir; Millar-Blanchaer, Maxwell A.; Perrin, Marshall D.; Pueyo, Laurent; Ren, Bin B.; Tamura, Motohide; Wagner, Kevin; Skemer, Andrew; Boccaletti, Anthony; Uyama, Taichi; Lawson, Kellen; Pantin, Eric; Schlieder, Joshua E.; Lagage, Pierre-Olivier; Marley, Mark S.; Zhou, Yifan; Lew, Ben W. P.; Dupuy, Trent J.; Kraus, Adam L.; Calissendorff, Per; Wyatt, Mark C.; Kuzuhara, Masayuki; Grady, Carol A.; Zhang, Xi; Faherty, Jacqueline K.; Morley, Caroline V.; Bowler, Brendan P.; Stapelfeldt, Karl R.; Kammerer, Jens; Lloyd, James P.; Sallum, Steph; Meyer, Michael R.; Vigan, Arthur; Girard, Julien H.; Kenworthy, Matthew A.; Kervella, Pierre; Kennedy, Grant M.; Cugno, Gabriele; Quanz, Sascha P.; Quirrenbach, Andreas; Samland, Matthias; Tan, Xianyu; Marois, Christian; Janson, Markus; McElwain, Michael W.; Leisenring, Jarron M.; Ygouf, Marie; Biller, Beth A.; Petrus, Simon; Stone, Jordan M.; Ward-Duong, Kimberly; Wang, Jason J.; Balmer, William O.; Bonavita, Mariangela; Bonnefoy, Mickael; Chauvin, Gael; Choquet, Elodie; Christiaens, Valentin; Danielski, Camilla; Matthews, Elisabeth C.; Miles, Brittany E.; Patapis, Polychronis; Ray, Shrishmoy; Rickman, Emily; Whiteford, Niall; Absil, Olivier; Booth, Mark; Greebaum, Alexandra Z.; Hoch, Kielan K. W.; Liu, Michael C.; Marino, Sebastian; Mawet, Dimitri; Molliere, Paul; Mukherjee, Sagnick; Rebollido, Isabel; Vasist, Malavika; Worthen, Kadin; Briesemeister, Zackery W.; Bryan, Marta L.; Cantalloube, Faustine; De Furio, Matthew; Factor, Samuel M.; Franson, Kyle; Hood, Callie E.; Howe, Alex R.; Lagrange, Anne-Marie; Lazzoni, Cecilia; Liu, Pengyu; Llop-Sayson, Jorge; Martinez, Raquel A.; Palma-Bifani, Paulina; Redai, Jea Adams; Vos, Johanna M.; Zhang, Keming; Zhang, Zhoujian
United States, United Kingdom, Chile, France, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Greece, Netherlands, Canada, Japan, Ireland
Abstract
We present JWST Early Release Science coronagraphic observations of the super-Jupiter exoplanet, HIP 65426b, with the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) from 2 to 5 μm, and with the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) from 11 to 16 μm. At a separation of ~0.″82 (87 ${}_{-31}^{+108}$ au), HIP 65426b is clearly detected in all seven of our observational filters, representing the first images of an exoplanet to be obtained by JWST, and the first-ever direct detection of an exoplanet beyond 5 μm. These observations demonstrate that JWST is exceeding its nominal predicted performance by up to a factor of 10, depending on separation and subtraction method, with measured 5σ contrast limits of ~1 × 10-5 and ~2 × 10-4 at 1″ for NIRCam at 4.4 μm and MIRI at 11.3 μm, respectively. These contrast limits provide sensitivity to sub-Jupiter companions with masses as low as 0.3M Jup beyond separations of ~100 au. Together with existing ground-based near-infrared data, the JWST photometry are fit well by a BT-SETTL atmospheric model from 1 to 16 μm, and they span ~97% of HIP 65426b's luminous range. Independent of the choice of model atmosphere, we measure an empirical bolometric luminosity that is tightly constrained between $\mathrm{log}\left({L}_{\mathrm{bol}}/{L}_{\odot }\right)$ = -4.31 and -4.14, which in turn provides a robust mass constraint of 7.1 ± 1.2 M Jup. In totality, these observations confirm that JWST presents a powerful and exciting opportunity to characterize the population of exoplanets amenable to high-contrast imaging in greater detail.