4.6 Article

Atmospheric escape from hot Jupiters

Journal

ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS
Volume 418, Issue 1, Pages L1-L4

Publisher

EDP SCIENCES S A
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20040106

Keywords

star : individual : HD 209458; stars : planetary systems

Ask authors/readers for more resources

The extra-solar planet HD 209458b has been found to have an extended atmosphere of escaping atomic hydrogen (Vidal-Madjar et al. 2003), suggesting that hot Jupiters closer to their parent stars could evaporate. Here we estimate the atmospheric escape (so called evaporation rate) from hot Jupiters and their corresponding life time against evaporation. The 14 calculated evaporation rate of HD 209458b is in excellent agreement with the H I Lyman-alpha observations. We find that the tidal forces and high temperatures in the upper atmosphere must be taken into account to obtain reliable estimate of the atmospheric escape. Because of the tidal forces, we show that there is a new escape mechanism at intermediate temperatures at which the exobase reaches the Roche lobe. From an energy balance, we can estimate plausible values for the planetary exospheric temperatures, and thus obtain typical life times of planets as a function of their mass and orbital distance.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.6
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available