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Highlights of exoplanetary science from Spitzer

Nature Astronomy volume 4, pages 453–466 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Observations of extrasolar planets were not projected to be a substantial part of the Spitzer Space Telescope’s mission when it was conceived and designed. Nevertheless, Spitzer was the first facility to detect thermal emission from a hot Jupiter-sized planet, and the range of its exoplanetary investigations grew to encompass transiting planets, microlensing, brown dwarfs, and direct imaging searches and astrometry. Spitzer used phase curves to measure the longitudinal distribution of heat as well as time-dependent heating on hot Jupiters. Its secondary eclipse observations strongly constrained the dayside thermal emission spectra and corresponding atmospheric compositions of hot Jupiters, and the timings of eclipses were used for studies of orbital dynamics. Spitzer’s sensitivity to carbon-based molecules such as methane and carbon monoxide was key to atmospheric composition studies of transiting exoplanets as well as imaging spectroscopy of brown dwarfs, and complemented Hubble Space Telescope spectroscopy at shorter wavelengths. Its capability for long continuous observing sequences enabled searches for new transiting planets around cool stars and helped to define the architectures of planetary systems such as TRAPPIST-1. Spitzer measured masses for small planets at large orbital distances using microlensing parallax. Spitzer observations of brown dwarfs probed their temperatures, masses and weather patterns. Imaging and astrometry from Spitzer was used to discover new planetary-mass brown dwarfs and to measure distances and space densities of many others.

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Fig. 1: Illustration of the techniques used by Spitzer to measure transiting planets.
Fig. 2: Timeline of some major exoplanetary scientific highlights from Spitzer.
Fig. 3: Thermal emission spectra of the two brightest ‘hot Jupiters’.
Fig. 4: Measured versus predicted brightness temperatures.
Fig. 5: Transmission spectrum for the sub-Saturn-mass exoplanet WASP-127 b.
Fig. 6: Structure of an exoplanet phase curve.
Fig. 7: Transit and secondary eclipse (occultation) times for WASP-12 b, showing orbital decay.
Fig. 8: Transits of planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system as observed with Spitzer and ground-based photometry.
Fig. 9: Microlensing light curves for OGLE-2016-BLG-1067.
Fig. 10: Spitzer IRAC photometry of 2MASS J21392216+0220185.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Marley for his comments on the brown dwarf section and E. Agol for his comments on the TRAPPIST-1 masses. We thank Y. Chachan, N. Wallack and M. Zhang for making figures.

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  1. Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Drake Deming

  2. NASA Astrobiology Institute’s Virtual Planetary Laboratory http://depts.washington.edu/naivpl/

    Drake Deming

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

    Heather A. Knutson

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Deming, D., Knutson, H.A. Highlights of exoplanetary science from Spitzer. Nat Astron 4, 453–466 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-020-1100-9

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