Poster Abstracts - Kepler - NASA

POSTER ABSTRACTSP0503. POSTER SESSION INEAR-INFRARED SPECTROSCOPIC VIEW OF GJ1214B.V.D. Ivanov 1 , P. Kabath 1 , P. Rojo 2 , C. Caceres 3 , J. Girard 1 , J. Fortney 4 , and E. Miller-Ricci 41 European Southern Observatory, Alsono de Cordova 3107, Vitacura, Santiago 19001, Chile (vivanov, pkabath, jgirard@eso.org);2 Departamento de Astronomia, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile (pato@das.uchile.cl);3 Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics P. Universidad Católica de Chile, Av. Vicuña Mackenna 4860,7820436 Macul, Santiago, Chile (cccacere@astro.puc.cl); 4 Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Universityof California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA (jfortney, elizamr@ucolick.org)Introduction: Th handful of transiting super-Earths known today typically have few Earth masses,and they are very interesting for the further studies becauseof their potential similarities with our lifebearingplanet, Earth. Knowing the composition oftheir atmospheres is a most critical piece of information.GJ1214b has an advantage over the rest because itorbits a late-type star, which boosts the planet-to-starratio, and makes this planet more accessible than theothers, orbiting Solar analogs.Current theoretical models predict that GJ1214b iseither water world with thin atmosphere or it has anextensive H/He atmosphere.Observations: We present 1.5-2.5 micron transmissionspectra of the super-Earth GJ1214b, obtainedduring three different transits with the SofI spectrograph[1] at the ESO NTT on La Silla. An additionalparallel Ks-band light curve was obtained with the INTduring one of the transits.Results: Our data agree with the conclusion of [3]that the GJ1214b atmosphere must have a cloud layer.References: [1] Moorwood, A., Cuby, J.G., Lidman,C. 1998, The Messenger 91, 9. [2] Miller-Ricci,E., et al. 2010, ApJ, 716, 74. [3] Bean, J. et a., 2011,ApJ, submitted (astro-ph/)1109.0582).1682011 Kepler Science Conference - NASA Ames Research Center