Ariel will mark the dawn of a new era as the first large-scale survey
characterising exoplanetary atmospheres with science objectives to address
fundamental questions about planetary composition, evolution and formation. In
this study, we explore the detectability of atmospheres vaporised from magma
oceans on dry, rocky Super-Earths orbiting very close to their host stars. The
detection of such atmospheres would provide a definitive piece of evidence for
rocky planets but are challenging measurements with currently available
instruments due to their small spectral signatures. However, some of the
hottest planets are believed to have atmospheres composed of vaporised rock,
such as Na and SiO, with spectral signatures bright enough to be detected
through eclipse observations with planned space-based telescopes. In this
study, we find that rocky super-Earths with a irradiation temperature of 3000 K
and a distance from Earth of up to 20 pc, as well as planets hotter than 3500 K
and closer than 50 pc, have SiO features which are potentially detectable in
eclipse spectra observed with Ariel.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Experimental
Astronomy, Ariel Special Issu