We’re back after coffee, and jump right into star-planet interaction with Babatunde Akinsanmi talking to us about the tidal deformation and atmosphere of WASP-12 b.
WASP-12 b is one of the ultra-hot Jupiter orbiting close to the Roche limit, being tidally deformed by the host star.
One can measure the tidal deformation with light curves because the shape affects the shape of the curve.
Also, the phase-curve varies! This is super cool 🥹
They observed WASP-12 b 45 times with #CHEOPS and used #TESS and #Spitzer data to study the phase curve including tidal deformation.
Why is tidal deformation important? If you don’t account for the shape, you’ll overestimate the density of your planet.
The phase curves allow to calculate the Love number which should tell us about the core mass fraction. Sadly not very well constrained, so we need #JWST for that instead. They’ll be doing that for WASP-103 b.
We continue with Jonathan Fortney on GJ436 b - the original archetype #warm#Neptune
It has an intriguingly “large” eccentricity (I disagree that 0.14 is large sorry 🤓).
Thermal emission from the planet showed to be different for the #Spitzer points, at the time explained through atmospheric chemistry: non-equilibrium + mixing.
Reanalysis + follow-up showed a lower point at 3.6 micron, so less bright, but still brighter. Suggestion: tidal heating driving up the interior? #ExSSV
Featured in Nature's selection of the best #science images of the month: a composite image of the Cassiopeia A #supernova remnant that brings together data from several #NASA telescopes: X-rays from #Chandra, infrared from #JWST & #Spitzer, optical data from #Hubble.
This artist's conception shows a young, hypothetical planet around a cool star. A soupy mix of potentially life-forming chemicals can be seen pooling around the base of the jagged rocks.
Here are two images of the same object, Herbig-Haro 46/47. HH 46/47 is a pair of jets launched by young stars.
They are taken at similar wavelengths of infrared light. The difference? #Spitzer's mirror was 85 cm (33 inches) in diameter, about the size of a hula-hoop. #JWST's mirror is 6.6 meters (21.7 feet) in diameter, the height of a two-story building.
Check out this new visualization from Universe of Learning — Stephan's Quintet: A Multi-wavelength Exploration.
Based on data from Hubble, Spitzer, Chandra, and JWST, take a 3D journey through the galaxies in Stephan's Quintet. See the stretched-out features from the gravitational interactions between the galaxies, the shocks created as they run into one another, and the secret supermassive black hole obscured by dust.