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Laura Kreidberg, who directs research on the exoplanet atmosphere at the Max Planck Institute, would like to conduct an independent analysis of the data before jumping to conclusions. “There are a lot of small decisions that can cause unexpected bumps and shakes in data processing,” Kreidberg says. “I’d like to see another team play the spectrum using independent methods to see if they get the same thing.”
In fact, this process is already underway. Last week, another research group led by astrophysicist at the Sapienza University in Rome, Lorenzo Mugnai, released a separate paper GJ 1132 bn Analyzes the same data as Hubble independently. But when Mugnai’s team crushed the data, they found that the planet’s spectrum was relatively flat, meaning it had no perceptible atmosphere. “It’s very difficult to be sure of the reason for the differences because it’s a very difficult analysis,” Mugnai says. “We know the devil is in the details.”
The two teams meet regularly to find out what caused such a huge difference in results, but Mugnai and Swain believe the problem is how the variation in sunlight can be taken into account when the planet moves in front of the star. a parameter known as darkening of the limbs. “A star doesn’t have a uniform brightness from the center to the edge,” Swain says. “When the planet is close to one edge or the other, it seems to block less light because part of the star it covers is more blurred than the average star.”
To correct for this effect, researchers need to process their data with a model that can take into account the darkening and brightness of the star. Both groups used the same model, but with different coefficients. They are now planning exchange methods to see if they can repeat the results of the other group.
However, Darius Modirrousta-Galian, the author of Mugnai’s paper, believes that it is very difficult for GJ 1132 bk to store enough hydrogen to create a second atmosphere because it is so close to its host star. Researchers on exoplanets do not yet know what effect star radiation may have had on the atmosphere. “The view we take is that the radiation from the stars is very strong and that the planet’s wind causes supersonic velocities and extreme particle velocities, which basically makes the atmosphere boil,” he says.
Modirrousta-Galian says the amount of hydrogen that would be needed to overcome this loss and make a second atmosphere would be several times greater than the mass of the planet. “Within our model we have no problem that the planet could have been born with a hydrogen atmosphere,” he says. “The conclusion we came to is that we don’t have it now.”
Still more research — and new observations from the James Webb space telescope — to be launched on October 31st—One of the results of the groups must be checked or complicated. If GJ 1132 b proves to have a hydrogen atmosphere, it could open up new avenues of exploration for planetary scientists. First, these atmospheres would be much easier to study than smaller planets with denser orbits composed of heavy elements. The low molecular weight of hydrogen allows the light to have a lighter atmosphere, achieving a wider and wider atmosphere. And this makes for a stronger spectrographic signature that is easy to read from Earth.
Both groups are pushing the boundaries of what is possible with the Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 2000, two years before astronomers discovered the first known exoplanet. Swain warns that the Earth’s size is 1.16 times larger, making it the smallest planet to ever have a transmitted spectrum of GJ 1132 b. “I think the exciting thing here is to better understand how important they are to the study of small planets,” he says.
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