Detection of titanium oxide in the atmosphere of a hot Jupiter

Abstract

As an exoplanet transits its host star, some of the light from the star is absorbed by the atoms and molecules in the planet's atmosphere, causing the planet to seem bigger; plotting the planet's observed size as a function of the wavelength of the light produces a transmission spectrum. Measuring the tiny variations in the transmission spectrum, together with atmospheric modelling, then gives clues to the properties of the exoplanet's atmosphere. Chemical species composed of light elements$-$such as hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, sodium and potassium$-$have in this way been detected in the atmospheres of several hot giant exoplanets, but molecules composed of heavier elements have thus far proved elusive. Nonetheless, it has been predicted that metal oxides such as titanium oxide (TiO) and vanadium oxide occur in the observable regions of the very hottest exoplanetary atmospheres, causing thermal inversions on the dayside. Here we report the detection of TiO in the atmosphere of the hot-Jupiter planet WASP-19b. Our combined spectrum, with its wide spectral coverage, reveals the presence of TiO (to a confidence level of 7.7σ), a strongly scattering haze (7.4σ) and sodium (3.4σ), and confirms the presence of water (7.9σ) in the atmosphere.

Main article: 9 pages, 3 figures. Methods: 21 pages, 7 extended data figures, 3 extended data tables. Published in Nature

References in corpus (13)

• Bayes in the sky: Bayesian inference and model selection in cosmology
• A Precise Water Abundance Measurement for the Hot Jupiter WASP-43b
• Rayleigh scattering in the transit spectrum of HD 189733b
• Efficient identification of exoplanetary transit candidates from SuperWASP light curves
• Water Vapor in the Spectrum of the Extrasolar Planet HD 189733b: 1. the Transit
• Uniform Atmospheric Retrieval Analysis of Ultracool Dwarfs I: Characterizing Benchmarks, Gl570D and HD3651B
• Impact of occultations of stellar active regions on transmission spectra: Can occultation of a plage mimic the signature of a blue sky?
• VLT FORS2 comparative transmission spectroscopy: Detection of Na in the atmosphere of WASP-39b from the ground
• VLT/FORS2 comparative transmission spectroscopy II: confirmation of a cloud-deck and Rayleigh scattering in WASP-31b, but no potassium?
• Potassium detection in the clear atmosphere of a hot-Jupiter: FORS2 transmission spectroscopy of WASP-17b
• Regaining the FORS: optical ground-based transmission spectroscopy of the exoplanet WASP-19b with VLT+FORS2
• Probing the atmosphere of a sub-Jovian planet orbiting a cool dwarf
• Regaining the FORS: making optical ground-based transmission spectroscopy of exoplanets with VLT+FORS2 possible again

Cited by in corpus (93)

• 2021 Census of Interstellar, Circumstellar, Extragalactic, Protoplanetary Disk, and Exoplanetary Molecules
• The 2020 release of the ExoMol database: molecular line lists for exoplanet and other hot atmospheres
• Mass-Metallicity Trends in Transiting Exoplanets from Atmospheric Abundances of H${}_2$O, Na, and K
• High-Resolution Spectroscopic Detection of TiO and Stratosphere in the Day-side of WASP-33b
• The Transit Light Source Effect II: The Impact of Stellar Heterogeneity on Transmission Spectra of Planets Orbiting Broadly Sun-like Stars
• Why is it so Cold in Here?: Explaining the Cold Temperatures Retrieved from Transmission Spectra of Exoplanet Atmospheres
• Aerosols in Exoplanet Atmospheres
• Titanium oxide and chemical inhomogeneity in the atmosphere of the exoplanet WASP-189b
• Atmospheric Regimes and Trends on Exoplanets and Brown Dwarfs
• On degeneracies in retrievals of exoplanetary transmission spectra
• Five key exoplanet questions answered via the analysis of 25 hot Jupiter atmospheres in eclipse
• New Avenues for Thermal Inversions in hot Jupiters
• Searching for Thermal Inversion Agents in the Transmission Spectrum of MASCARA-2b/KELT-20b: Detection of Neutral Iron and Ionised Calcium H$\&$K Lines
• Non-detection of TiO and VO in the atmosphere of WASP-121b using high-resolution spectroscopy
• POSEIDON: A Multidimensional Atmospheric Retrieval Code for Exoplanet Spectra
• A temperature inversion with atomic iron in the ultra-hot dayside atmosphere of WASP-189b
• The atmosphere of HD 209458b seen with ESPRESSO. No detectable planetary absorptions at high resolution
• ARES I: WASP-76 b, A Tale of Two HST Spectra
• TRIDENT: A Rapid 3D Radiative Transfer Model for Exoplanet Transmission Spectra
• Detection of Fe and evidence for TiO in the dayside emission spectrum of WASP-33b
• Aurora: A Generalised Retrieval Framework for Exoplanetary Transmission Spectra
• Super-Rayleigh Slopes in Transmission Spectra of Exoplanets Generated by Photochemical Haze
• Detection of Fe\,{\sc i} Emission in the Day-side Spectrum of WASP-33b
• The Metal-Rich Atmosphere of the Neptune HAT-P-26b
• Signatures of Nitrogen Chemistry in Hot Jupiter Atmospheres
• High-resolution transmission spectroscopy study of ultra-hot Jupiters HAT-P-57b, KELT-17b, KELT-21b, KELT-7b, MASCARA-1b, and WASP-189b
• A Spectral Survey of WASP-19b with ESPRESSO
• LRG-BEASTS III: Ground-based transmission spectrum of the gas giant orbiting the cool dwarf WASP-80
• The White Dwarf Opportunity: Robust Detections of Molecules in Earth-like Exoplanet Atmospheres with the James Webb Space Telescope
• On the Application of Bayesian Leave-One-Out Cross-Validation to Exoplanet Atmospheric Analysis
• Gemini/GMOS Optical Transmission Spectroscopy of WASP-121b: signs of variability in an ultra-hot Jupiter?
• Atmospheric characterization of the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-33b: Detection of Ti and V emission lines and retrieval of a broadened line profile
• $TESS$ Phase Curve of the Hot Jupiter WASP-19b
• HST PanCET Program: A Complete Near-UV to Infrared Transmission Spectrum for the Hot Jupiter WASP-79b
• Assessing Spectra and Thermal Inversions due to TiO in Hot Jupiter Atmospheres
• Is TiO emission present in the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-33b? A reassessment using the improved ExoMol Toto line list
• Detection of Na in WASP-21b's lower and upper atmosphere
• ExoMol line lists -- XLV. Rovibronic molecular line lists of calcium monohydride (CaH) and magnesium monohydride (MgH)
• HST/STIS transmission spectrum of the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-76 b confirms the presence of sodium in its atmosphere
• Hot Exoplanet Atmospheres Resolved with Transit Spectroscopy (HEARTS) VII. Detection of sodium on the long-transiting inflated sub-Saturn KELT-11 b
• Broadband transmission spectroscopy of HD209458b with ESPRESSO: Evidence for Na, TiO, or both
• Towards a new era in giant exoplanet characterisation
• LBT transmission spectroscopy of HAT-P-12b: confirmation of a cloudy atmosphere with no significant alkali features
• Discarding orbital decay in WASP-19b after one decade of transit observations
• LRG-BEASTS: Ground-based Detection of Sodium and a Steep Optical Slope in the Atmosphere of the Highly Inflated Hot-Saturn WASP-21b
• Evidence for chromium hydride in the atmosphere of Hot Jupiter WASP-31b
• Mass-independent analysis of the stable isotopologues of gas-phase titanium monoxide -- TiO
• Storms or Systematics? The changing secondary eclipse depth of WASP-12b
• Three Hot-Jupiters on the upper edge of the mass-radius distribution: WASP-177, WASP-181 and WASP-183
• An enhanced slope in the transmission spectrum of the hot Jupiter WASP-104b
• ACCESS: Confirmation of a Clear Atmosphere for WASP-96b and a Comparison of Light Curve Detrending Techniques
• Challenges in the detection of gases in exoplanet atmospheres
• A Framework for Characterizing Transmission Spectra of Exoplanets with Circumplanetary Rings
• Super stellar abundances of alkali metals suggest significant migration for Hot Jupiters
• A new method to measure the spectra of transiting exoplanet atmospheres using multi-object spectroscopy
• Evidence for TiO in the atmosphere of the hot Jupiter HAT-P-65 b
• ACCESS: Confirmation of no potassium in the atmosphere of WASP-31b
• Detection of Aerosols at Microbar Pressures in an Exoplanet Atmosphere
• Obliquity measurement and atmospheric characterization of the WASP-74 planetary system
• Detection limits of exoplanetary atmospheres with 2-m class telescopes
• Evidence of apsidal motion and a possible co-moving companion star detected in the WASP-19 system
• Detection of TiO and VO in the atmosphere of WASP-121b and Evidence for its temporal variation
• Evidence for stellar contamination in the transmission spectra of HAT-P-12b
• A full configuration interaction quantum Monte Carlo study of ScO, TiO and VO molecules
• HATS-50b through HATS-53b: four transiting hot Jupiters orbiting G-type stars discovered by the HATSouth survey
• The widest broadband transmission spectrum (0.38-1.71 $\mu$m) of HD 189733b from ground-based chromatic Rossiter-McLaughlin observations
• ExoLyn: a golden mean approach to multi-species cloud modelling in atmospheric retrieval
• Stellar activity consequence on the retrieved transmission spectra through chromatic Rossiter-McLaughlin observations
• Detection of faculae in the transit and transmission spectrum of WASP-69b
• Atmospheric Characterization via Broadband Color Filters on the PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) Mission
• On the Effect of Stellar Activity on Low-resolution Transit Spectroscopy and the Use of High Resolution as Mitigation
• An ESPRESSO view of HD 189733 system. Broadband transmission spectrum, differential rotation, and system architecture
• A precise blue-optical transmission spectrum from the ground: Evidence for haze in the atmosphere of WASP-74b
• Tentative detection of titanium oxide in the atmosphere of WASP-69 b with a 4m ground-based telescope
• A transiting giant planet in orbit around a 0.2-solar-mass host star
• Colour-colour and colour-magnitude diagrams for Hot Jupiters
• HORuS transmission spectroscopy and revised planetary parameters of KELT-7b
• Benchmark tests of transmission spectroscopy using transiting white dwarfs
• Characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres through a model-unbiased spectral survey methodology
• The strange case of Na I in the atmosphere of HD209458 b: Reconciling low- and high-resolution spectroscopic observations G
• A dayside thermal inversion in the atmosphere of WASP-19b
• ACCESS: Tentative detection of H${}_2$O in the ground-based optical transmission spectrum of the low-density hot Saturn HATS-5b
• How do wavelength correlations affect transmission spectra? Application of a new fast and flexible 2D Gaussian process framework to transiting exoplanet spectroscopy
• GEMS JWST: Transmission spectroscopy of TOI-5205b reveals significant stellar contamination and a metal-poor atmosphere
• TESS Unveils the Full Phase Curve of WASP-19b
• Tracing bulk elemental ratios in exoplanetary atmospheres with TiO chemistry
• A Global Perspective with Updated Constraints on the Ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-19b: Atmospheric Properties and Stellar Activity
• FORS-Up: Making the most versatile instrument in Paranal ready for 15 more years of operations
• Extrasolar enigmas: from disintegrating exoplanets to exoasteroids
• A new method to correct for host star variability in multi-epoch observations of exoplanet transmission spectra
• GHz Dielectric Measurement of Powdery TiO
• The breaking of cold traps and onset of titanium in ultra-hot Jupiter atmospheres: WASP-189b in context
• Investigation of the upper atmosphere in ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-76 b with high-resolution spectroscopy