arXivDaily arXiv每日学术速递 周一至周五更新
arXiv 0802.1836astro-ph
收藏

根据光度观测确定太阳系外类地行星上的旋转速率和动态天气的存在

Identifying the rotation rate and the presence of dynamic weather on extrasolar Earth-like planets from photometric observations

E. Palle, Eric B. Ford, S. Seager, P. Montanes-Rodriguez, M. Vazquez

摘要:

随着最近数百颗太阳系外行星的发现,寻找像地球这样的行星和宇宙中的生命的动力正在迅速增加。未来,大型太空天文台可以直接探测岩石行星散射的光,但无法对行星表面进行空间解析。使用反射率模型和卫星观测的真实云数据,在这里,我们表明,尽管地球的动态天气模式,由地球散射到一个假设的遥远的观察者作为时间的函数的光包含足够的信息,以准确地测量地球的自转周期。这是因为洋流和大陆导致相对稳定的平均全球云模式。这些测量的准确性将随观测几何和其他观测约束而变化。如果可以精确地测量自转周期,那么可以将几个月的数据连贯地结合起来,以获得行星表面各个区域的光谱信息。此外,与周期性信号的偏差可以用于推断其大气中存在相对短寿命的结构(即,云)。这可以提供一种有用的技术,用于识别具有活跃天气系统的系外行星,这些天气系统在与其旋转相当的时间尺度上发生变化。这种变化可能与大气温度和压力接近相变有关,并可能支持行星表面存在液态水的可能性。

英文摘要:

With the recent discoveries of hundreds of extrasolar planets, the search for planets like Earth and life in the universe, is quickly gaining momentum. In the future, large space observatories could directly detect the light scattered from rocky planets, but they would not be able to spatially resolve a planet's surface. Using reflectance models and real cloud data from satellite observations, here we show that, despite Earth's dynamic weather patterns, the light scattered by the Earth to a hypothetical distant observer as a function of time contains sufficient information to accurately measure Earth's rotation period. This is because ocean currents and continents result in relatively stable averaged global cloud patterns. The accuracy of these measurements will vary with the viewing geometry and other observational constraints. If the rotation period can be measured with accuracy, data spanning several months could be coherently combined to obtain spectroscopic information about individual regions of the planetary surface. Moreover, deviations from a periodic signal can be used to infer the presence of relatively short-live structures in its atmosphere (i.e., clouds). This could provide a useful technique for recognizing exoplanets that have active weather systems, changing on a timescale comparable to their rotation. Such variability is likely to be related to the atmospheric temperature and pressure being near a phase transition and could support the possibility of liquid water on the planet's surface.

机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来,可能存在错误,请以论文正文为准。

↑