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Polarization Technique Focuses Limelight On Exo Planet Atmospheres
Zurich, Switzerland (SPX) Dec 31, 2007 An international team of astronomers, led by Professor Svetlana Berdyugina of ETH Zurich's Institute of Astronomy, has for the first time ever been able to detect and monitor the visible light that is scattered in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. Employing techniques similar to how Polaroid sunglasses filter away reflected sunlight to reduce glare, the team of scientists were able to extract polarized light to enhance the faint reflected starlight 'glare' from an exoplanet. As a result, the scientists could infer the size of its swollen atmosphere. They also directly traced the orbit of the planet, a feat of visualization not possible using indirect methods.
Hot Jupiter Known as HD189733b, this exoplanet was discovered two years ago via Doppler spectroscopy. HD189733b is so close to its parent star that its atmosphere expands from the heat. Until now, astronomers have never seen light reflected from an exoplanet, although they have deduced from other observations that HD189733b probably resembles a 'hot Jupiter' - a planet orbiting extremely closely to its parent star. Unlike Jupiter, however, HD189733b orbits its star in a couple of days rather than the 12 years it takes Jupiter to make one orbit of the sun.
Two half-moon phases The telescope, which belongs to the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, is located at La Palma, Spain and was modernised by scientists in Finland. The researchers obtained polarimetric measurements of the star and its planet. They discovered that polarization peaks near the moments when half of the planet is illuminated by the star as seen from the earth. Such events occur twice during the orbit, similar to half-moon phases. The polarization indicates that the scattering atmosphere is considerably larger (>30%) than the opaque body of the planet seen during transits and most probably consists of particles smaller than half a micron, for example atoms, molecules, tiny dust grains or perhaps water vapour, which was recently suggested to be present in the atmosphere. Such particles effectively scatter blue light - in exactly the same scattering process that creates the blue sky of the earth's atmosphere. The scientists were also able for the first time to recover the orientation of the planet's orbit and trace its motion in the sky. "The polarimetric detection of the reflected light from exoplanets opens new and vast opportunities for exploring physical conditions in their atmospheres", Professor Svetlana Berdyugina said. "In addition, more can be learned about radii and true masses, and thus the densities of non-transiting planets."
Svetlana V. Berdyugina, Andrei V. Berdyugin, Dominique M. Fluri, Vilppu Piirola: First detection of polarized scattered light from an exoplanetary atmosphere, Astrophys. J. Lett., online publication 24. December 2007. Related Links ETH Zurich/Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lands Beyond Beyond - extra solar planets - news and science Life Beyond Earth
Gliese 581: One Planet Might Indeed Be Habitable
Paris, France (SPX) Dec 14, 2007In April, a European team of astronomers announced in Astronomy and Astrophysics the discovery of two possibly habitable Earth-like planets. A and A is now publishing two independent, detailed studies of this system, which confirm that one of the planets might indeed be located within the habitable zone around the star Gliese 581. |
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