Perpustakaan Digital ITB

Deciphering the chemical properties of atmospheres using remote sensing is the next frontier in exoplanetary science1. Short of mastering interstellar travel,it is the only conceivable path towards probing whether exoplanets are habitable or inhabited2. Hot Jupiters are a class of exoplanet witha size comparable to that of Jupiter and short orbital periods (of typically several days). Such features make hot Jupiters a good starting point for astronomers to hone their observational and theoretical techniques as they work their way towards examining smaller exoplanets that have cooler atmospheres. On page 58, Evans et al.3 report the detection of water in the thermal spectrum of the hot Jupiter WASP-121b. The discovery suggests that WASP-121b contains an analogue of Earth’s ozone layer, causing the exoplanet’s atmosphere to feature a temperature inversion — in which temperature increases with altitude.