Search Publications
A Population Study of Gaseous Exoplanets
Tsiaras, A.; Waldmann, I. P.; Rocchetto, M. +8 more
We present here the analysis of 30 gaseous extrasolar planets, with temperatures between 600 and 2400 K and radii between 0.35 and 1.9 R Jup. The quality of the HST/WFC3 spatially scanned data combined with our specialized analysis tools allow us to study the largest and most self-consistent sample of exoplanetary transmission spectra t…
Global Climate and Atmospheric Composition of the Ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-103b from HST and Spitzer Phase Curve Observations
Fortney, Jonathan J.; Stevenson, Kevin B.; Désert, Jean-Michel +13 more
We present thermal phase curve measurements for the hot Jupiter WASP-103b observed with Hubble/WFC3 and Spitzer/IRAC. The phase curves have large amplitudes and negligible hotspot offsets, indicative of poor heat redistribution to the nightside. We fit the phase variation with a range of climate maps and find that a spherical harmonics model gener…
The Complete Transmission Spectrum of WASP-39b with a Precise Water Constraint
Wakeford, H. R.; Sing, D. K.; Deming, D. +12 more
WASP-39b is a hot Saturn-mass exoplanet with a predicted clear atmosphere based on observations in the optical and infrared. Here, we complete the transmission spectrum of the atmosphere with observations in the near-infrared (NIR) over three water absorption features with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) G102 (0.8-1.1 &…
An Optical Transmission Spectrum for the Ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-121b Measured with the Hubble Space Telescope
Nikolov, Nikolay; Drummond, Benjamin; Sing, David K. +24 more
We present an atmospheric transmission spectrum for the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-121b, measured using the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on board the Hubble Space Telescope. Across the 0.47-1 µ {{m}} wavelength range, the data imply an atmospheric opacity comparable to—and in some spectroscopic channels exceeding—that previously measured…
The Solar Neighborhood XLIV: RECONS Discoveries within 10 parsecs
Henry, Todd J.; Winters, Jennifer G.; Jao, Wei-Chun +7 more
We describe the 44 systems discovered to be within 10 pc of the Sun by the RECONS team, primarily via the long-term astrometry program at the CTIO/SMARTS 0.9 m that began in 1999. The systems—including 41 with red dwarf primaries, 2 white dwarfs, and 1 brown dwarf—have trigonometric parallaxes greater than 100 mas, with errors of 0.4-2.4 mas in al…
The Faint End of the z = 5 Quasar Luminosity Function from the CFHTLS
Fan, Xiaohui; Jiang, Linhua; McGreer, Ian D. +1 more
We present results from a spectroscopic survey of z ∼ 5 quasars in the CFHT Legacy Survey. Using both optical color selection and a likelihood method, we select 97 candidates over an area of 105 deg2 to a limit of i AB < 23.2, and 7 candidates in the range 23.2 < i AB < 23.7 over an area of 18.5 deg2<…
The Near-infrared Transmission Spectra of TRAPPIST-1 Planets b, c, d, e, f, and g and Stellar Contamination in Multi-epoch Transit Spectra
Apai, Dániel; Zhou, Yifan; Rackham, Benjamin V. +1 more
The seven approximately Earth-sized transiting planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system provide a unique opportunity to explore habitable- and nonhabitable-zone small planets within the same system. Its habitable-zone exoplanets—due to their favorable transit depths—are also worlds for which atmospheric transmission spectroscopy is within reach with the H…
Revisiting the Phase Curves of WASP-43b: Confronting Re-analyzed Spitzer Data with Cloudy Atmospheres
Mendonça, João M.; Demory, Brice-Olivier; Heng, Kevin +1 more
Recently acquired Hubble and Spitzer phase curves of the short-period hot Jupiter WASP-43b make it an ideal target for confronting theory with data. On the observational front, we re-analyze the 3.6 and 4.5 µm Spitzer phase curves and demonstrate that our improved analysis better removes residual red noise due to intra-pixel sensitivity, whi…
An HST/WFC3 Thermal Emission Spectrum of the Hot Jupiter HAT-P-7b
Fortney, Jonathan J.; Stevenson, Kevin B.; Désert, Jean-Michel +7 more
Secondary eclipse observations of several of the hottest hot Jupiters show featureless, blackbody-like spectra or molecular emission features, which are consistent with thermal inversions being present in those atmospheres. Theory predicts a transition between warmer atmospheres with thermal inversions and cooler atmospheres without inversions, bu…
WFIRST Exoplanet Mass-measurement Method Finds a Planetary Mass of 39 ± 8 M ⊕ for OGLE-2012-BLG-0950Lb
Bennett, D. P.; Udalski, A.; Anderson, J. +13 more
We present the analysis of the simultaneous high-resolution images from the Hubble Space Telescope and Keck adaptive optics system of the planetary event OGLE-2012-BLG-0950 that determine that the system consists of a 0.58 ± 0.04 {M}⊙ host star orbited by a 39 ± 8 {M}\oplus planet at a projected separation of 2.54 ± 0.23 au…