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Atmospheric reconnaissance of the habitable-zone Earth-sized planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1

Nature Astronomy volume 2, pages 214–219 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Seven temperate Earth-sized exoplanets readily amenable for atmospheric studies transit the nearby ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 (refs 1,2). Their atmospheric regime is unknown and could range from extended primordial hydrogen-dominated to depleted atmospheres3,4,5,6. Hydrogen in particular is a powerful greenhouse gas that may prevent the habitability of inner planets while enabling the habitability of outer ones6,7,8. An atmosphere largely dominated by hydrogen, if cloud-free, should yield prominent spectroscopic signatures in the near-infrared detectable during transits. Observations of the innermost planets have ruled out such signatures9. However, the outermost planets are more likely to have sustained such a Neptune-like atmosphere10, 11. Here, we report observations for the four planets within or near the system’s habitable zone, the circumstellar region where liquid water could exist on a planetary surface12,13,14. These planets do not exhibit prominent spectroscopic signatures at near-infrared wavelengths either, which rules out cloud-free hydrogen-dominated atmospheres for TRAPPIST-1 d, e and f, with significance of 8σ, 6σ and 4σ, respectively. Such an atmosphere is instead not excluded for planet g. As high-altitude clouds and hazes are not expected in hydrogen-dominated atmospheres around planets with such insolation15, 16, these observations further support their terrestrial and potentially habitable nature.

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Fig. 1: Hubble/WFC3 white light curves of the four TRAPPIST-1 habitable-zone planets d, e, f and g over four visits.
Fig. 2: Transmission spectra of TRAPPIST-1 d, e, f and g compared with synthetic atmospheres dominated by hydrogen (H2), water (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen (N2).

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Acknowledgements

This work is based on observations made with the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)/European Space Agency HST that were obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy. These observations are associated with programme GO-14873 (principal investigator J.d.W.), support for which was provided by NASA through a grant from the Space Telescope Science Institute. H.R.W. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013)/ERC grant agreement no. 336792, and funding under the Space Telescope Science Institute Giacconi Fellowship. This work was partially conducted while on appointment to the NASA Postdoctoral Program at Goddard Space Flight Center, administered by the Universities Space Research Association through a contract with NASA. L.D. acknowledges support from the Gruber Foundation Fellowship. E.J. and M.G. are Research Associates at the Belgian Fonds (National) de la Recherche Scientifique (FRS-FNRS). The research leading to these results has received funding from the ERC under the FP/2007–2013 ERC grant agreement no. 336480, and from a grant from the Concerted Research Actions, financed by the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. B.-O.D. acknowledges support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (PP00P2–163967). This work was also partially supported by a grant from the Simons Foundation (PI Queloz, grant no. 327127). This project has received funding from the ERC under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 679030/WHIPLASH). V.B. acknowledges the financial support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. We thank D. Taylor, K. Stevenson, N. Reid and K. Sembach for their assistance in the planning, execution and/or analysis of our observations. J.d.W., H.R.W. and N.K.L. thank also the Howards-Lewis Team and F. Dory for their support and contributions during the data-processing phase of this work.

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Author notes

  1. Julien de Wit, Hannah R. Wakeford and Nikole K. Lewis contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Julien de Wit

  2. Astrophysics Group, University of Exeter, Devon, UK

    Hannah R. Wakeford

  3. Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Hannah R. Wakeford & Nikole K. Lewis

  4. Astrophysics Group, Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, UK

    Laetitia Delrez

  5. Space sciences, Technologies and Astrophysics Research (STAR) Institute, Université de Liège, Liege, Belgium

    Michaël Gillon & Emmanuël Jehin

  6. Laboratoire d’astrophysique de Bordeaux, Univ. Bordeaux, CNRS, Pessac, France

    Frank Selsis & Jérémy Leconte

  7. University of Bern, Center for Space and Habitability, Bern, Switzerland

    Brice-Olivier Demory & Simon Grimm

  8. Astrophysics Division of CEA de Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

    Emeline Bolmont

  9. Observatoire de l’Université de Genève, Sauverny, Switzerland

    Vincent Bourrier

  10. Center for Astrophysics and Space Science, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Adam J. Burgasser

  11. NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Susan M. Lederer

  12. Astrophysics Group, Imperial College London, Blackett Laboratory, London, UK

    James E. Owen

  13. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Vlada Stamenković

  14. Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Vlada Stamenković

  15. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Amaury H. M. J. Triaud

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  1. Julien de Wit
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Contributions

J.d.W. and N.K.L. led the management of the survey. J.d.W. planned the observations. J.d.W and H.R.W. led the data reduction and analysis with the support of N.K.L., L.D., M.G. and B.-O.D. J.d.W. led the data interpretation with the support of H.R.W., N.K.L., V.S., J.L., J.E.O. and F.S. Every author contributed to the writing of the manuscript and/or the HST proposal behind these observations.

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Correspondence to Julien de Wit.

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de Wit, J., Wakeford, H.R., Lewis, N.K. et al. Atmospheric reconnaissance of the habitable-zone Earth-sized planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1. Nat Astron 2, 214–219 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-017-0374-z

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