Notes of Orchids from Andalucía. II

Notas de Orquídeas de Andalucia II. Palabras clave. Orchidaceae, Andalucía, Espana.Key Words. Orchidaceae, Andalucía, Spain

New Analysis Indicates No Thermal Inversion in the Atmosphere of HD 209458b

An important focus of exoplanet research is the determination of the atmospheric temperature structure of strongly irradiated gas giant planets, or hot Jupiters. HD 209458b is the prototypical exoplanet for atmospheric thermal inversions, but this assertion does not take into account recently obtained data or newer data reduction techniques. We re-examine this claim by investigating all publicly available Spitzer Space Telescope secondary-eclipse photometric data of HD 209458b and performing a self-consistent analysis. We employ data reduction techniques that minimize stellar centroid variations, apply sophisticated models to known Spitzer systematics, and account for time-correlated noise in the data. We derive new secondary-eclipse depths of 0.119 +/- 0.007%, 0.123 +/- 0.006%, 0.134 +/- 0.035%, and 0.215 +/- 0.008% in the 3.6, 4.5, 5.8, and 8.0 micron bandpasses, respectively. We feed these results into a Bayesian atmospheric retrieval analysis and determine that it is unnecessary to invoke a thermal inversion to explain our secondary-eclipse depths. The data are well-fitted by a temperature model that decreases monotonically between pressure levels of 1 and 0.01 bars. We conclude that there is no evidence for a thermal inversion in the atmosphere of HD 209458b.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures; accepted for publication in Ap

Coincident Imaging and Spectrometric Observations of Zenith OH Nightglow Structure

During the ALOHA‐90 campaign a novel comparative study was made between near infrared wave structure imaged in the zenith using a CCD camera and that detected at infrared wavelengths by a Fourier Transform Spectrometer. Coincident measurements were made briefly on several occasions and for an extended period on 31 March. The temporal variations imaged in the near infrared structure during this night almost completely matched those detected in the OH (3,1) band spectrometer data when similar viewing fields were compared. However, the image data also displayed small scale wave forms that were not resolved by the larger field instrument. These structures exhibited significant changes in brightness and position on a time scale much shorter than the local Brunt‐Väisälä period indicating that very high resolution measurements are necessary to investigate short period (\u3c20 min) upper atmospheric wave motions

Spectrometric and Imaging Measurements of a Spectacular Gravity Wave Event Observed During the ALOHA-93 Campaign

During the ALOHA‐93 campaign coincident imaging and interferometric measurements of the near infrared and visible wavelength nightglow emissions were made from Haleakala Crater, Maui. On 10 October, 1993 a most unusual wave event was observed. This disturbance appeared as a sharp “front” followed by several conspicuous wave crests which progressed rapidly through the imager\u27s field of view (180°). As the front passed overhead the interferometer detected a sudden jump in both the OH intensity (\u3e50%) and its rotational temperature (∼20 K) with the temperature increase leading the intensity by almost 15 min. At the same time the imager registered a sharp decrease in the OI(557.7 nm) emission intensity. A description of this remarkable event follows

Notas sobre orquídeas de Alicante

Notes on the orchids of AlicanteNotas sobre orquídeas de Alicant