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Nature (2023)
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We are providing an unedited version of this manuscript to give early access to its findings. Before final publication, the manuscript will undergo further editing. Please note there may be errors present which affect the content, and all legal disclaimers apply.
The Saturn-mass exoplanet WASP-39b has been the subject of extensive efforts to determine its atmospheric properties using transmission spectroscopy1-4. However, these efforts have been hampered by modelling degeneracies between composition and cloud properties that are caused by limited data quality5-9. Here, we present the transmission spectrum of WASP-39 b obtained using the SOSS mode of the NIRISS instrument on JWST. This spectrum spans 0.6–2.8𝝻m in wavelength and reveals multiple water absorption bands, the potassium resonance doublet, and signatures of clouds. The precision and broad wavelength coverage of NIRISS-SOSS allows us to break model degeneracies between cloud properties and the atmospheric composition of WASP-39b, favouring a heavy element enhancement (“metallicity”) of ~10–30x the solar value, a sub-solar carbon-to-oxygen (C/O) ratio, and a solar-to-super-solar potassium-to-oxygen (K/O) ratio. The observations are also best explained by wavelength-dependent, non-gray clouds with inhomogeneous coverage of the planet’s terminator.
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Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
Adina D. Feinstein & Jacob L. Bean
Department of Physics and Institute for Research on Exoplanets, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada
Michael Radica, Louis-Philippe Coulombe, Björn Benneke, Jake Taylor, Caroline Piaulet & Pierre-Alexis Roy
School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
Luis Welbanks & Michael R. Line
Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA
Catriona Anne Murray & Zachory K. Berta-Thompson
Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA
Kazumasa Ohno, Jonathan J. Fortney, Natalie M. Batalha, Aarynn L. Carter & Sagnick Mukherjee
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA
Néstor Espinoza, Quentin Changeat, Leonardo A. Dos Santos & Nikolay K. Nikolov
Department of Physics & Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
Néstor Espinoza & David K. Sing
Earth and Planets Laboratory, Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington, DC, USA
Johanna K. Teske, Peter Gao & Munazza K. Alam
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
Zafar Rustamkulov, David K. Sing & Natalie H. Allen
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, London, United Kingdom
Arianna Saba, Angelos Tsiaras & Quentin Changeat
INAF – Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Largo E. Fermi 5, Firenze, Italy
Angelos Tsiaras
School of Physical Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
Joanna K. Barstow
Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
Heather A. Knutson
Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
Ryan J. MacDonald
Department of Astronomy and Carl Sagan Institute, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
Ryan J. MacDonald & Jake D. Turner
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany
Thomas Mikal-Evans, Laura Kreidberg, Karan Molaverdikhani, Thomas Henning & Luigi Mancini
Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
Benjamin V. Rackham
Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
Benjamin V. Rackham
Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Jake Taylor, Vivien Parmentier & Xianyu Tan
Université Côte d’Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, CNRS, Laboratoire Lagrange, Nice, France
Vivien Parmentier
Astrobiology Program, UC Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA
Natalie M. Batalha
European Space Agency, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA
Quentin Changeat & Sarah Kendrew
School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
Neale P. Gibson
School of Earth and Planetary Sciences (SEPS), National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), HBNI, Jatni, Odisha, India
Jayesh M. Goyal
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA, USA
Mercedes López-Morales, James Kirk & Diana Powell
Department of Physics, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA
Joshua D. Lothringer
Leiden Observatory, University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands
Yamila Miguel & Nicolas Crouzet
SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Leiden, the Netherlands
Yamila Miguel
Universitäts-Sternwarte, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, München, Germany
Karan Molaverdikhani & Kevin Heng
Exzellenzcluster Origins, Garching, Germany
Karan Molaverdikhani
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
Sarah E. Moran
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), Tenerife, Spain
Giuseppe Morello & Enric Palle
Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), Tenerife, Spain
Giuseppe Morello
INAF- Palermo Astronomical Observatory, Piazza del Parlamento, Palermo, Italy
Giuseppe Morello
Johns Hopkins APL, Laurel, MD, USA
Kevin B. Stevenson & E. M. May
School of Physics, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
Hannah R. Wakeford & Lili Alderson
Centre for Exoplanets and Habitability, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
Eva-Maria Ahrer & Peter J. Wheatley
Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
Eva-Maria Ahrer, Kevin Heng & Peter J. Wheatley
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Mountain View, CA, USA
Natasha E. Batalha
BAER Institute, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffet Field, Mountain View, CA, USA
Taylor J. Bell
Department of Physics, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE
Jasmina Blecic
Center for Astro, Particle and Planetary Physics (CAP3), New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE
Jasmina Blecic
Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA
Jonathan Brande & Ian J. M. Crossfield
Instituto de Astrofísica, Universidad Andres Bello, Santiago, Chile
Claudio Caceres
N’ucleo Milenio de Formaci’on Planetaria (NPF), Santiago, Chile
Claudio Caceres
Centro de Astrofísica y Tecnologías Afines (CATA), Casilla 36-D, Santiago, Chile
Claudio Caceres
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
S. L. Casewell & Michael T. Roman
Centre for Exoplanet Science, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK
Katy L. Chubb
INAF – Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino, Pino Torinese, Italy
Patricio E. Cubillos
Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Graz, Austria
Patricio E. Cubillos
Institute of Astronomy, Department of Physics and Astronomy, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Leen Decin
Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Jean-Michel Désert
Planetary Sciences Group, Department of Physics and Florida Space Institute, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, USA
Joseph Harrington
ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Kevin Heng
Institute for Astrophysics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Nicolas Iro
Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
Eliza M.-R. Kempton & Matthew C. Nixon
Department of Physics, Imperial College London, London, UK
James Kirk
California Institute of Technology, IPAC, Pasadena, CA, USA
Jessica Krick
Université Paris-Saclay, Université Paris Cité, CEA, CNRS, AIM, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
Pierre-Olivier Lagage
Département d’Astronomie, Université de Genève, Sauverny, Switzerland
Monika Lendl & Dominique J. M. Petit dit de la Roche
Department of Physics, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Rome, Italy
Luigi Mancini
INAF – Turin Astrophysical Observatory, Pino Torinese, Italy
Luigi Mancini
Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
Megan Mansfield & Everett Schlawin
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Faculty of Environment Science and Economy, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
N. J. Mayne
Astronomy Department and Van Vleck Observatory, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, USA
Seth Redfield
Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Laura K. Rogers & Matthew C. Nixon
Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez: Penalolen, Santiago, CL, Chile
Michael T. Roman
Maison de la Simulation, CEA, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, UVSQ, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
P. Tremblin
Université de Paris Cité and Univ Paris Est Creteil, CNRS, LISA, Paris, France
Olivia Venot
Astrophysics and Planetary Sciences Department, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA
William C. Waalkes
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, USA
Xi Zhang
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Correspondence to Adina D. Feinstein.
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Feinstein, A.D., Radica, M., Welbanks, L. et al. Early Release Science of the exoplanet WASP-39b with JWST NIRISS. Nature (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05674-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05674-1
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