Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

PLANETARY ATMOSPHERES

Renovation by late nebular accretion

Nature Astronomy volume 4, pages 737–738 (2020)Cite this article

Subjects

Secondary gas disks around main sequence stars may regenerate planetary atmospheres, potentially transforming desiccated rocky worlds into gas-enveloped sub-Neptunes that feature high metallicities and enhanced atmospheric C/O ratios.

The fraction of a planet composed of gas compared to that composed of solids can be inferred from basic observables such as mass, radius and, to a smaller extent, incident flux. But how do we determine the composition of the gaseous envelopes, and what can they tell us? Detailed atmospheric characterization of exoplanets — from observations or theory — may be used to infer their formation conditions, their evolution and perhaps their potential to harbour life. The typical assumption is that the planet’s atmosphere is primordial, accreted from the surrounding nebula during the formation of the planetary system. Quentin Kral and colleagues have suggested an alternative idea, that a planet could accrete a new atmosphere from a secondary gas disk generated by planetesimal collisions in debris disks1.

Your institute does not have access to this article

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Fig. 1: The expected C/O ratio of secondary atmospheres accrued from gas disks generated by planetesimal collisions.

References

  1. Kral, Q. et al. Nat. Astron. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-020-1050-2 (2020).

  2. Dent, W. R. F. et al. Science 343, 1490–1492 (2014).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Kreidberg, L. et al. Nature 505, 69–72 (2014).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Knutson, H. A., Benneke, B., Deming, D. & Homeier, D. Nature 505, 66–68 (2014).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Morley, C. V. et al. Astrophys. J. 775, 33 (2013).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Benneke, B. et al. Nat. Astron. 3, 813–821 (2019).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Wakeford, H. R. et al. Science 356, 628–631 (2017).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Youdin, A. N. & Goodman, J. Astrophys. J. 620, 459–469 (2005).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Lee, E. J. & Chiang, E. Astrophys. J. 811, 41 (2015).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Ariel Assessment Study Report (Yellow Book) (European Space Agency, 2017).

  11. GRAVITY collaboration. Astron. Astrophys. 633, A110 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    Eve J. Lee

  2. McGill Space Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    Eve J. Lee

  3. Institute for Research on Exoplanets, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    Eve J. Lee

Authors
  1. Eve J. Lee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eve J. Lee.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Lee, E.J. Renovation by late nebular accretion. Nat Astron 4, 737–738 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-020-1122-3

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-020-1122-3

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing