planets ours and others From Earth to Exoplanets Planets: Ours and Others Downloaded from

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1 planets ours and others From Earth to Exoplanets

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3 planets ours and others From Earth to Exoplanets Thérèse Encrenaz Paris Observatory, France World Scientific

4 Published by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. 5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore USA office: 27 Warren Street, Suite , Hackensack, NJ UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE Planets: Ours and Others Downloaded from Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Encrenaz, Thérèse, 1946 author. Planets : ours and others : from Earth to exoplanets / Thérèse Encrenaz (Paris Observatory, France). pages cm Includes index. ISBN (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Planets. 2. Extrasolar planets. I. Title. QB601.E dc British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Originally published in French as Les Planètes by EDP Sciences. Copyright EDP Sciences A co-publication with EDP Sciences, 17, rue du Hoggar, Parc d'activités de Courtaboeuf BP 112, Les Ulis Cedex A, France. This edition is distributed worldwide by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., except France. Copyright 2014 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the Publisher. For photocopying of material in this volume, please pay a copying fee through the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. In this case permission to photocopy is not required from the publisher. Typeset by Stallion Press enquiries@stallionpress.com Printed in Singapore

5 Thérèse Encrenaz, born in 1946, is a Senior Scientist at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. She works at LESIA (Laboratory of Space and Instrumental Studies for Astrophysics) at Paris Observatory. Her expertise is the study of planetary atmospheres, in particular by remote sensing analyses, using space and ground-based data. She has been involved in many space missions (Vega, Phobos, Galileo, ISO, Mars Express, Venus Express, Rosetta). She is the author of over 250 articles in refereed journals and a dozen popular books. She received the silver medal of CNRS in 1998, the Janssen medal of the Astronomical French Society in 2007, and the David Bates medal of the European Geophysical Union in 2010.

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7 Acknowledgements I wish to thank Fabienne Casoli and Athena Coustenis who carefully read the manuscript. I also thank Marc Ollivier and Athena for their help in preparing the figures. Finally, I wish to thank all the colleagues who have allowed me to include some of their work in this book.

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9 Acknowledgements Foreword Introduction Contents 1. How to Explore Planets? The Earth in space Telescopic observations Observations from space Searching for exoplanets The Birth of Planets A formation within a disk A common scenario in the Universe What is the age of the solar system? The main steps of planetary formation Telluric planets and giant planets Between the two families of planets: asteroids Pluto and the transneptunian objects 35 vii xi xiii

10 3. Exploring Planet Earth Rocks and metals: a differentiated internal structure A terrestrial singularity: plate tectonics Formation of terrestrial relief: the isostasy principle Our natural environment: the terrestrial atmosphere The water cycle: another specificity of Earth Between the Earth and space, the magnetosphere A brief history of the Earth s climate The Earth Moon couple: a double system The Earth, a unique planet Planets: Ours and Others Downloaded from 4. The Neighbors of the Earth Closest to the Sun, Mercury A Moon that looks like Mercury Venus, the furnace Mars, a desert word Comparative evolution of terrestrial planets: the role of water A Little Further, the Giant Planets Two classes of giant planets From Jupiter to Neptune: four decades of exploration The outer satellites Exoplanets, the New Worlds A long quest marked with failures Fifteen years later, the situation The formation of planetary systems How to classify exoplanets? From detection to characterization Searching for Habitable Worlds A new discipline, astrobiology Life elsewhere in the solar system? Life on exoplanets? Searching for inhabited worlds 186 x Contents

11 Foreword This book by Thérèse Encrenaz is among the first of a new series Introduction to..., aimed at addressing a scientific question in simple and accessible language, far from the jargon of specialists. This question the nature, origin and evolution of planets is especially timely, as we now know over 900 planets orbiting nearby stars, in addition to our eight solar system planets. Planetary astronomy is a science almost as old as civilization, since the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians already knew the motions of planets. Following Newton, celestial mechanics, devoted to the study and the prediction of celestial motions, has developed as far as becoming the queen of sciences ; recent developments of this discipline, previously thought to be outdated, are surprising and spectacular. In contrast, due to the lack of appropriate observational means, progress in the physical study of planets has been quite slow after the plethora of discoveries accumulated in the XVIIth century by Galileo, Huygens and Cassini. Only half a century ago, we still knew almost nothing about the nature of the planets and their atmospheres, not to mention their satellites. Then, thanks to big ground-based telescopes and radio-telescopes, Earth-orbiting observatories and space probes, our knowledge has exploded. A new discipline, comparative planetology, has emerged from these often unexpected discoveries acquired over the last five decades. It opens for us exciting

12 horizons about the origin and evolution of planets, including our own Earth. In addition, the discovery of extrasolar planets one of the greatest discoveries of today s astronomy opens a new dimension in the study of planets, and promising perspectives about the quest for extraterrestrial life. Our present understanding of planets and exoplanets is far from being definitive: the great variety of solar system planets and satellites, and, even more so, the multiplicity of exotic planetary systems discovered so far raise many unanswered questions. It could seem impossible to synthesize in a few pages such a rich and complex topic. Still, the author has succeeded in this task, thanks to her pedagogic skills and her deep knowledge of the subject; in fact, she is one of the scientists who have developed planetology in France. This book will interest not only the educated layman, but also specialists of the field. The reader will easily understand the text, dense but clear, and helped by beautiful images coming from the space probes and the big telescopes. This well written book, on a topic of great importance, should encounter a durable success. James Lequeux Emeritus Astronomer, Paris Observatory xii Foreword

13 Introduction What is a planet? The question may look silly, as its answer seems obvious. Still, the definition of a planet has evolved significantly over the centuries. The Greeks gave the name of planets, i.e. wandering objects, to the celestial bodies moving in the sky with respect to the stars. In Antiquity, only visible planets were known, and we still use their latin translation: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. In the XVIth century, following the Copernican revolution, planets were defined as bodies in orbit around the Sun, and the Earth was added to the list, followed two centuries later by Uranus. At the beginning of the XIXth century, the discovery of the biggest asteroids made the situation more confused. Astronomers soon understood that a new class of objects had been discovered, the main belt asteroids located between Mars and Jupiter. As more and more of these objects were expected to be discovered, they were withdrawn from the official list of planets. After Neptune s discovery in 1846, the list included thus eight objects. A new surprise came in 1930: Pluto, a distant object orbiting the Sun, was discovered beyond Neptune s orbit. Logically, it became the ninth planet. It kept this status until 2006, when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) decided to remove it from the list. What has happened in between? Following hunting campaigns with larger and larger telescopes, a new class of objects was discovered: the transneptunian objects (TNOs). Like Pluto, they are located beyond Neptune s orbit, in a region of the

14 solar system called the Kuiper Belt. Their existence had been suspected a few decades ago, on theoretical bases, by two astronomers, K. Edgeworth and G. Kuiper; it allowed us to explain, in particular, the origin of comets with low inclinations and short periods. As discoveries of TNOs accumulated, it has become obvious that Pluto is only one of the largest members of this family; its large size made its discovery possible well before the other TNOs. A proof of Pluto s origin is given by the fact that many TNOs have the same revolution period as Pluto, which is exactly 1.5 times Neptune s period: Pluto and Neptune are said to be in 3:2 resonance, and the same applies to all other TNOs (called Plutinos) with the same period. In 2003 came the end of Pluto s fate as a planet: Eris, a TNO as big as Pluto, or possibly even bigger, was discovered. It is much farther from the Sun that Pluto, which explains why it was not discovered earlier. Now appears the evidence: the Kuiper Belt contains thousands of objects of this kind, possibly bigger than Pluto, which remain to be discovered. Thus, it becomes impossible to keep Pluto as a planet, unless the risk of having to enlarge the list of planets indefinitely is taken. This is why, very logically, the list of planets has been reduced to the eight planets known before The most massive TNOs, as well as the biggest asteroid, Ceres, have received the label of dwarf planets (see Insert in Annex). Our eight planets can be divided into two distinct classes, very different in nature. In the vicinity of the Sun, within 2 AU (the AU is the astronomical unit, i.e. the mean Sun Earth distance or more precisely, the semi-major axis of the Earth s orbit), the four terrestrial planets are characterized by a relatively small radius and a high density: they are also called the rocky planets. Beyond 5 AU, the four giant planets are found, very large but with small densities, all surrounded by a ring system and a large number of satellites. We will see later how this fundamental difference between the two classes of planets can be explained in the light of the formation scenario of the solar system. Let us go back to the definition of a planet. It looked simple at the beginning; after the discovery of extrasolar planets or planets orbiting other stars it is no more the case. The discovery, since 1995, of hundreds of exoplanets surrounding nearby stars has been a true revolution for astronomy. The solar system is no longer a unique phenomenon, even if the planetary systems found so far look very different from the one we xiv Introduction

15 know. Thus, the concept of a planetary system, and hence the concept of a planet, needs to be revisited. The definition given by the IAU in 2006 is not very clear for the layman (see Insert). The object, in orbit around a star, must have cleared the space around its orbit (this is to exclude asteroids or Kuiper Belt type objects). This definition will possibly evolve in the future, as new exotic objects will be discovered. Let us try to define what are, in our view, the essential characteristics of a planet, those which make it specific. At the center of the planetary system, we find the star, which has a thermonuclear energy source. As the star evolves, it transforms its hydrogen (entirely produced during the Big Bang, in the so-called primordial nucleosynthesis) into helium; then, C, N and O are formed, then heavier and heavier elements including metals and, in particular, iron. These nuclear reactions are at the origin of the radiation emitted by the Sun and the stars. In contrast, planets do not have this energy source, because their mass and internal temperature are not sufficient for the thermonuclear cycle to start. Using theoretical modeling, the critical mass needed to start this cycle can be estimated: it is about 13 times the mass of Jupiter. If the mass is above 80 times the Jovian mass, the object falls in the star class. Between 13 and 80 Jovian masses, it belongs in an intermediate class called brown dwarfs. Its mass is sufficient to start the first thermonuclear cycle which transforms hydrogen into deuterium; the temperature is a few million degrees. But this is not sufficient to start the next step, which is the formation of helium: a temperature of ten million degrees would be needed. Brown dwarfs are aborted stars, so to speak, which were interrupted early in their thermonuclear cycle. With no thermonuclear source, planets still have some internal sources of energy, but those have nothing in common in terms of intensity. For giant planets, the internal energy is a leftover of the gravitational energy accumulated during the accretion phase of the planets; for telluric planets, the radioactive elements present in the interior feed an internal source which is responsible for volcanism and plate tectonics. However, the sources only add to the main energy source, which comes from the solar (or stellar) radiation. Beyond the definitions of experts, the first characteristic of a planet appears clear: the light emitted by the planet does not come from its own PLANETS xv

16 interior, but comes from the light of the Sun, or its host star. This light can be either reflected or scattered, at the same wavelength as the solar radiation, or absorbed by the planet and converted into thermal heat; in this case the radiation peaks at longer wavelengths. Similar to every object in the Universe, planets have an intrinsic radiation (called the blackbody radiation) associated with their temperatures. In the case of the solarsystem planets, this temperature is at most a few hundred K and peaks in the infrared range. An equilibrium takes place between the absorbed solar radiation and the thermal emission corresponding to the equilibrium temperature of the planet. The contribution of the internal energy may also have to be included (of gravitational origin for giant planets, of radioactive origin for terrestrial planets). The closer the planet to its host star, the more efficient is the heating; its equilibrium temperature decreases as the planet s distance to the star increases. Let us now take the case of an exoplanet. For a given star, there is a distance at which the equilibrium temperature will be above 0 C in a range allowing water, if present, to be in liquid form. This case is of most interest for us: could such planets look like the Earth and host life? This fundamental question motivates our interest in planets and exoplanets. The purpose of this book is to try to characterize planets, both in their general entity and in their diversity. Starting from our planet Earth, then describing the diversity of solar system planets, we will try to show how a few essential parameters (the distance to their star, their mass, density, obliquity, rotation period...) determine their physico-chemical properties (chemical composition, thermal and cloud structure, atmospheric circulation, seasonal effects, climate...). We will then be in a better position to explore the new field opened to us, the exoplanets. Starting from the experience acquired from solar system planets, we will try to imagine what their composition and structure may be, on the basis of the few parameters we know. We keep the quest for extraterrestrial life still in mind: could it exist or have existed, in the solar system and/or beyond? If some exoplanets are hospitable to life, how could we identify those rare pearls and how could we find evidence for eventual forms of life? This is the Holy Grail for the whole scientific community and well beyond, a major challenge for the coming century. xvi Introduction

17 The Definition of the Planets by the IAU General Assembly, Prague, 24 August 2006 Resolutions Planets: Ours and Others Downloaded from Resolution 5A is the principal definition for the IAU usage of planet and related terms. Resolution 6A creates for IAU usage a new class of objects, for which Pluto is the prototype. The IAU will set up a process to name these objects. IAU Resolution: Definition of a Planet in the Solar System Contemporary observations are changing our understanding of planetary systems, and it is important that our nomenclature for objects reflect our current understanding. This applies, in particular, to the designation planets. The word planet originally described wanderers that were known only as moving lights in the sky. Recent discoveries lead us to create a new definition, which we can make using currently available scientific information. Resolution 5A The IAU therefore resolves that planets and other bodies in our solar system, except satellites, be defined into three distinct categories in the following way: (1) A planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit. PLANETS xvii

18 (2) A dwarf planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite. (3) All other objects, except satellites, orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as Small Solar System Bodies. IAU Resolution: Pluto Planets: Ours and Others Downloaded from Resolution 6A The IAU further resolves: Pluto is a dwarf planet by the above definition and is recognized as the prototype of a new category of trans-neptunian objects. According to the definitions above, the solar system has eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The list of dwarf planets currently has four members: the largest asteroid, Ceres, and three trans-neptunian objects: Pluto, Eris and Makemake. See also xviii Introduction