Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Hst Hot-Jupiter Transmission Spectral Survey: Clear Skies For Cool Saturn Wasp-39b, Patrick D. Fischer, Heather Knutson, David K. Sing, Gregory W. Henry, Michael H. Williamson, Jonathan J. Fortney, Adam S. Burrows, Tiffany Kataria, Nikolay Nikolov, Adam P. Showman, Gilda E. Ballester, Jean-Michel Désert, Suzanne Aigrain, Drake Deming, Alain Lecavelier Des Etangs, Alfred Vidal-Madjar

Information Systems and Engineering Management Research Publications

We present the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) optical transmission spectroscopy of the cool Saturn-mass exoplanet WASP-39b from 0.29-1.025 μm, along with complementary transit observations from Spitzer IRAC at 3.6 and 4.5 μm. The low density and large atmospheric pressure scale height of WASP-39b make it particularly amenable to atmospheric characterization using this technique. We detect a Rayleigh scattering slope as well as sodium and potassium absorption features; this is the first exoplanet in which both alkali features are clearly detected with the extended wings predicted by cloud-free atmosphere models. The full transmission spectrum is well …