“Imagining Exoplanets” by Smith, Villanueva and Suissa
Conference:
Type(s):
Entry Number: 20
Title:
- Imagining Exoplanets
Presenter(s)/Author(s):
Abstract:
In the past decade, we’ve discovered over 4,000 exoplanets1, or faraway worlds orbiting other stars. However, we can’t yet take a clear picture of any of them, so how can we begin to imagine what they look like?
Three teams at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center developed a unique approach to tackling this problem for an exoplanet called TOI-700 d. By combining 3D climate models, a newly-developed module for an exoplanet visualization tool, and Adobe After Effects, they successfully visualized possible scenarios for the planet (Figure 1) and offer an effective model for approaching future discoveries.
References:
- L. Villanueva, M. D. Smith, S. Protopapa, S. Faggi, and A. M. Mandell. 2018. Planetary Spectrum Generator: An accurate online radiative transfer suite for atmospheres, comets, small bodies and exoplanets. Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer 217 (Sep 2018), 86–104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jqsrt.2018.05.023 arXiv:1803.02008 [astro-ph.EP]
Emily A. Gilbert, Thomas Barclay, et al. 2020. The First Habitable Zone Earth-sized Planet from TESS. I: Validation of the TOI-700 System. arXiv e-prints, Article arXiv:2001.00952 (Jan 2020), arXiv:2001.00952 pages. arXiv:2001.00952 [astro-ph.EP]
George R. Ricker, Joshua N. Winn, et al. 2015. Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems 1, Article 014003 (Jan 2015), 014003 pages. https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JATIS.1.1.014003
Joseph E. Rodriguez, Andrew Vanderburg, et al. 2020. The First Habitable Zone Earth Sized Planet From TESS II: Spitzer Confirms TOI-700 d. arXiv e-prints, Article arXiv:2001.00954 (Jan 2020), arXiv:2001.00954 pages. arXiv:2001.00954 [astro-ph.EP]
Gabrielle Suissa, Eric T. Wolf, et al. 2020. The First Habitable Zone Earth-sized Planet from TESS. III: Climate States and Characterization Prospects for TOI- 700 d. arXiv e-prints, Article arXiv:2001.00955 (Jan 2020), arXiv:2001.00955 pages. arXiv:2001.00955 [astro-ph.EP]
Acknowledgements:
Gilbert et al. 2020, Rodriguez et al. 2020 and Suissa et al. 2020 were presented during the 235th American Astronomical Society meeting in Honolulu in January 2020.
