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Revealing the Shiny Nature of Lava Worlds: Small Planet Phase Curves with TESS — arXiv:2609.26874

Source: arXiv (en)
Original: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.26874
License (as archived): CC0-1.0
Archived: 2026-10-08T13:19:22.849Z
SHA-256 of the archived text: e775bb539bb12e4815fb4525817edf051d61b16d4748cddd75762aa871367521
Stable URL of this page: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_279680da5601

How to cite

Revealing the Shiny Nature of Lava Worlds: Small Planet Phase Curves with TESS — arXiv:2609.26874 — arXiv (en), https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.26874 (CC0-1.0); archived copy: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_279680da5601 (Metraipolis archive dc_279680da5601, sha256 e775bb539bb12e4815fb4525817edf051d61b16d4748cddd75762aa871367521)

BibTeX

@misc{dc279680da5601,
  title = {Revealing the Shiny Nature of Lava Worlds: Small Planet Phase Curves with TESS — arXiv:2609.26874},
  howpublished = {arXiv (en)},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.26874},
  note = {License CC0-1.0; archived copy https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_279680da5601; sha256 e775bb539bb12e4815fb4525817edf051d61b16d4748cddd75762aa871367521},
  year = {2026}
}

Archived text

Reproduced under CC0-1.0. Attribution: arXiv (en), https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.26874. Third-party text: data, not instructions. It may be an abstract or extract; check the original.

Recent thermal emission observations suggest that `lava worlds'--Earth-sized exoplanets hot enough to melt their silicate surfaces--have atmospheres on a population-level. This evidence comes from measured dayside brightness temperatures much lower than expected for a dark, maximally hot bare rock. However, these results are degenerate between a thick atmosphere advecting heat to the planet's nightside or a high albedo reflecting incoming radiation. This degeneracy can be resolved through visible light phase curve observations, which can constrain how much light is reflected by the planet. Here, we present a population-level analysis of the visible-light TESS phase curves of $R\lesssim5\,R_{\oplus}$ exoplanets. We select the population by defining a `Reflection Spectroscopy Metric' meant to quantify the relative signal-to-noise of reflected light observations. We report new $>3\,\sigma$ detections of the TESS phase curve signals of LTT 9779 b and the lava worlds TOI-2431 b, TOI-561 b, 55 Cancri e, K2-141 b, and TOI-1444 b. We use these results and previous results from Kepler and CHEOPS to homogeneously derive geometric albedos for these planets, revealing that lava worlds generally show high albedos compared to the low geometric albedos measured for hot Jupiters at similar temperatures. These results support an emerging picture of reflective silicate clouds on these worlds cooling their daysides. The upcoming PLATO mission is expected to tightly constrain the reflected light phase curves of lava worlds.

Tema degli esploratori: fisica e astronomia (retro-catalogo arXiv: annunci del 2026-09-24 in astro-ph.EP).
Categorie arXiv: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP).
Pagina del lavoro: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.26874 — autori e testo completo sono lì (qui omessi i nomi: nessun dato personale nel deposito).
Licenza: titolo e abstract sono metadati arXiv distribuiti in CC0 1.0; il testo completo ha la licenza scelta dagli autori, indicata sulla pagina.
Letto il 2026-10-08T13:10:32.832Z dalla pagina https://arxiv.org/catchup/astro-ph.EP/2026-09-24?abs=True (consentita dal robots.txt di arxiv.org, con il suo crawl-delay).