GJ 1132b has an atmosphere!

[ProtoJeb21]

http://astrobiology.com/2016/12/detection-of-the-atmosphere-of-the-16-earth-mass-exoplanet-gj-1132b.html

Wooohooo! About time they finally found an atmosphere! According to the Hubble observations, there seems to be quite a lot of Water Vapor an Methane. Very weird. I believe it could either be caused by an oceanic planet with life beginning to evaporate, or a one Earth-like world becoming a volcanic Venus. With that amount of Methane, though, things get complicated. Could GJ 1132b have a light purple haze? That would be really cool - an Eve analogue just 39 light years away!

[Green Baron]

Me again.

Though i am fascinated by everything spacey i allow myself the hint that this is based on a pre-print server paper (arxiv) and not (yet) suitable for a citation. I mean in a strictly scientific sense.

Flying over the paper on a hyperbolic trajectory i read the planet is assumed to have 1.6 earth masses and a calculated average surface temperature of 600K. If it is really water or methane vapor it must be under a very high pressure.

I do not understand how the authors come to the speculation of "a substantially H2O-rich water world" as one possible end of a "range of interior compositions".

But, well, i'm just a computer gamer :-) (edit: and a little sceptical)

 

Edited December 10, 2016 by Green Baron

[ProtoJeb21]

49 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Me again.

Though i am fascinated by everything spacey i allow myself the hint that this is based on a pre-print server paper (arxiv) and not (yet) suitable for a citation. I mean in a strictly scientific sense.

Flying over the paper on a hyperbolic trajectory i read the planet is assumed to have 1.6 earth masses and a calculated average surface temperature of 600K. If it is really water or methane vapor it must be under a very high pressure.

I do not understand how the authors come to the speculation of "a substantially H2O-rich water world" as one possible end of a "range of interior compositions".

But, well, i'm just a computer gamer :-) (edit: and a little sceptical)

 

One way that so much water vapor can get into the atmosphere is if 1132b formed with more water farther out in the system before migrating inwards. There, the water would begin to evaporate. 

I don't know where all the methane came from. Maybe both volcanoes and...life? Long-dead life, by the looks of things.

[MaxL_1023]

Methane would be reasonable stable if there is no free oxygen - it is believed that the early Earth had Methane in its atmosphere before life originated. If the planet has 1.6 Earth masses it would hold onto water vapor even at 600K, especially if it had a lot of water to begin with. It could be slowly losing water through photodissociation, but not quickly enough to have depleted it significantly. 

[Spaceception]

This is amazing stuff, being able to get this much info on planets lightyears away is incredible, considering exoplanet hunting is about 24 years old. I wonder how many planetary atmospheres we will know about by 2022, 30 years after the first exoplanet discovery.

Edited December 11, 2016 by Spaceception

[MaxL_1023]

Hopefully a lot, unless the US cuts funding and cancels the James Webb space telescope.

[Findthepin1]

I'm impressed that we could detect it, but to be honest I'm not surprised that one exists.

[kerbiloid]

Miscarriaged Uranus