Characterizing Habitable Exo-Moons
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Characterizing Habitable Exo-Moons L. Kaltenegger Harvard University, 60 Garden Street, 02138 MA, Cambridge USA Email: [email protected] Abstract We discuss the possibility of screening the atmosphere of exomoons for habitability. We concentrate on Earth-like satellites of extrasolar giant planets (EGP) which orbit in the Habitable Zone (HZ) of their host stars. The detectability of exomoons for EGP in the HZ has recently been shown to be feasible with the Kepler Mission or equivalent photometry using transit duration observations. Transmission spectroscopy of exomoons is a unique potential tool to screen them for habitability in the near future, especially around low mass stars. Using the Earth itself as a proxy we show the potential and limits of spectroscopy to detect biomarkers on an Earth-like exomoon and discuss effects of tidal locking for such potential habitats. Subject key words: occultation, Earth, astrobiology, eclipse, atmospheric effects, techniques: spectroscopic INTRODUCTION the question of whether we could screen Transiting planets are present-day "Rosetta such Earth-mass exomoons remotely for Stones" for understanding extrasolar planets habitability. because they offer the possibility of If the viewing geometry is optimal, i.e. the characterizing giant planet atmospheres (see. exomoon is close to the projected maximum e.g. Tinetti et al. 2007, Swain et al. 2008) and separation, the transit of an exomoon is should provide an access to biomarkers in the comparable to the transit of a planet the atmospheres of Earth-like bodies (Kaltenegger same size around the star (Kaltenegger & & Traub 2009, Deming et al. 2009, Ehrenreich Traub 2009), if the projected semimajor axis et al. 2006), once they are detected. Extrasolar is larger than the stellar radius. In such a giant planets might have “exomoon” satellites case transmission spectroscopy is a unique that could be detected using transit time duration potential tool to screen exomoons for measurements (Sartoretti & Schneider 1999, habitability in the near future. Section 2 Agol et al. 2005, Holman & Murray 2005, discusses the stability and geometry of Kipping 2009), lightcurve distortions (Szabo et potentially habitable exomoons, section 3 al. 2006), planet-moon eclipses (Cabrera & detectable spectral features of Earth-analog Schneider 2007), microlensing (Han 2008), exomoons, section 4 describes our model, pulsar timing (Lewis et al. 2008) and distortions section 5 presents and section 6 discusses of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect of a transiting the results. planet (Simon et al. 2009). A detailed study (Kipping et al. 2009) using transit time duration 2. A UNIQUE GEOMETRY measurements found that exomoons around Several groups have investigated the long- Extrasolar Giant Planets (EGP) in the Habitable term dynamical stability of hypothetical Zone (HZ) of their host star down to 0.2 Earth satellites and moons up to Earth masses masses (ME) may be detectable with the Kepler orbiting EGP (Cassidy et al. 2009, Barnes & Mission (Borucki et al. 1997) or equivalent O’Brian 2002, Domingos et al. 2006, Scharf photometry, which translates into 25000 stars 2006, Holman & Wiegert 1999) and have within Kepler ’s field-of view that can be shown that Earth-mass moons could exist screened for Earth-mass moons. This leads to and be stable for more than 5Gyr around EGP. The maximum stable distance of a 1 satellite from its planet is given by the Hill potentially habitable because they may have Radius RH that depends on the distance of the suitable temperatures and pressures at any planet to its host star ap, as well as the mass of solid surface to support liquid water. On the planet Mp and the star Mstar respectively. In Earth, some atmospheric species exhibiting detail, the critical semimajor axis beyond which noticeable spectral features in the planet’s the satellite would not be stable also depends on spectrum result directly or indirectly from the planet’s eccentricity ep as well as the biological activity: the main ones are O2, O3, satellite’s eccentricity eSat and whether it is in a CH4, and N2O. CO2 and H2O are in addition retrograde (aSat = aeR) or prograde (aSat = aeP) important as greenhouse gases in a planet’s orbit (see Domingos et al. 2006 for details), with atmosphere and potential sources for high additional stable regions further out for periodic O2 concentration from photosynthesis (see orbits that are not considered here (see e.g. Kaltenegger et al. 2009a, 2009b for details). Henon 1969). The critical distance depends only A habitable moon would need to be able weakly on the mass ratio (Holman & Wiegert to retain its volatiles. This depends on its 1999), so we can safely use the approximation of mass, the charged particle flux it receives, Domingos et al. (2006) which was derived for a whether it maintains a magnetosphere and mass ratio of 10-3. on its position with respect to the planet’s 1/3 RH = ap (Mp / 3MStar) (1) magnetosphere, among other factors. This leads to a lower mass limit between 0.12 to aeR≈ 0.9309RH(1–1.0764ep–0.9812eSat) (2) 0.23 ME (Williams et al. 1997, Kaltenegger aeP≈ 0.4895RH(1–1.0305ep–0.2738eSat) (3) et al. 2000) above which moons can potentially be Earth-analog environments if We calculate the critical semimajor axis their planet orbits within the HZ. for an Earth-like exomoon, for retrograde Our search for signs of life is based on the and prograde orbits around a Jupiter mass assumption that extraterrestrial life shares (M ) and a 13 M EGP in the Habitable Zone J J fundamental characteristics with life on of their host star. We concentrate on small Earth, in that it requires liquid water as a stars because the transit probability p solvent and has a carbon-based chemistry increases with decreasing stellar mass, (see e.g. Brack 1993), uses the same input which favors M dwarfs. p ≈ R /a where R s p s and output gases and exist out of the radius of the star and a the semi-major p thermodynamic equilibrium (Lovelock axis of the planet. The distance a is HZ 1975). ‘Biomarkers’ is used here to mean defined here as the 1AU-equivalent, where detectable chemical species, whose presence a planet would receive the same stellar flux at significant abundance strongly suggests a as the Earth, a = 1 AU (L /L S )0.5, HZ star Sun eff biological origin (e.g. CH +O , or CH +O , where L is the luminosity of the star and the 4 2 4 3 N O). ‘Bioindicators’ (e.g. H O, CH ) are normalized solar flux factor S takes the 2 2 4 eff indicative of biological processes but can wavelength dependent intensity distribution also be produced abiotically. It is their of the spectrum of different spectral classes abundances, and their detection in the into account, it is set to 1 for the Sun and context of both other atmospheric species, 1.05 for cool stars (Kasting et al. 1993). and the properties of the star and the planet that points toward a biological origin 3. REMOTELY SCREENING (Kaltenegger & Selsis 09). ATMOSPHERES FOR HABITATS Currently several exoplanets are known to 4. MODEL DESCRIPTION have a minimum mass below 10 M (Mayor et E The area of the stellar disk that is blocked al. 2009). This mass limit is usually considered 2 to separate terrestrial from giant planets, the by a transiting planet is given by πR (λ), where R(λ) = R + h(λ), R is the radius of latter having a significant fraction of their mass p p the planet at the base of the atmosphere, and in a H2-He envelope. Planets and satellites without a massive H -He envelope are h(λ) is the effectively opaque height of the 2 atmosphere at that wavelength. h(λ) can be 2 as large as about 50 km for strong spectral to observed reflection, emission and features in the Earth’s atmosphere (Kaltenegger transmission spectra (Woolf et al. 2002; & Traub 2009). During a transit, the relevant Christensen & Pearl 1997, Kaltenegger et al. signal of atmosphere absorption is N(sig) = 2007, Irion et al. 2002, Kaltenegger & Traub N(cont) – N(line), where N(cont) is the number 2009). For this paper we use an Earth model of potentially detectable photons in the atmosphere, namely the US Standard interpolated continuum at the location of a Atmosphere 1976 (COESA 1976) spring-fall spectral feature and over the wavelength band of model to derive the strength of the that feature, and N(line) is the number of detectable feature. detected photons in the band. The noise N(noise) in an idealized case is the fluctuation in the total 5. RESULTS number of detected photons from the star N(tot) Table 1 shows the stellar parameters, the in the same wavelength band, so N(noise) = 1AU-equivalent distance aHZ, the planet’s 1/2 N (tot), ignoring all other noise contributions. orbital period for a 1 Jupiter mass P1J with The total number of photons detected from the an Earth-mass exomoon and the star during a transit N(sig), in a given spectral corresponding transit duration T1J. The 2 range is N(sig) = N(tot) 2Rph(λ)/Rs . Thus the period and transit duration is reduced by less SNR for detecting a given spectral feature is than 10 % for a 13 MJ EGP orbiting the 1/2 2 SNR = N (tot) 2Rph(λ)/Rs . smallest host star (M9). nT denotes the Model Earth spectra are calculated with the number of transits per Earth year, and σ the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory code total number of hours the planet can be developed to analyze balloon-borne spectra of observed in transits per Earth year.