No thick carbon dioxide atmosphere on the rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 c

Abstract

Seven rocky planets orbit the nearby dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, providing a unique opportunity to search for atmospheres on small planets outside the Solar System. Thanks to the recent launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), possible atmospheric constituents such as carbon dioxide (CO₂) are now detectable. Recent JWST observations of the innermost planet TRAPPIST-1 b showed that it is most probably a bare rock without any CO₂ in its atmosphere. Here we report the detection of thermal emission from the dayside of TRAPPIST-1 c with the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on JWST at 15 µm. We measure a planet-to-star flux ratio of f_p/f⁎ = 421 ± 94 parts per million (ppm), which corresponds to an inferred dayside brightness temperature of 380 ± 31 K. This high dayside temperature disfavours a thick, CO₂-rich atmosphere on the planet. The data rule out cloud-free O₂/CO₂ mixtures with surface pressures ranging from 10 bar (with 10 ppm CO₂) to 0.1 bar (pure CO₂). A Venus-analogue atmosphere with sulfuric acid clouds is also disfavoured at 2.6σ confidence. Thinner atmospheres or bare-rock surfaces are consistent with our measured planet-to-star flux ratio. The absence of a thick, CO₂-rich atmosphere on TRAPPIST-1 c suggests a relatively volatile-poor formation history, with less than 9.5^(+7.5)_(−2.3) Earth oceans of water. If all planets in the system formed in the same way, this would indicate a limited reservoir of volatiles for the potentially habitable planets in the system.

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