Osiris revisited: Confirming a solar metallicity and low C/O in HD 209458b

TL;DR

This study uses new and archival spectra from HST and JWST to precisely analyze HD 209458b's atmosphere, confirming solar metallicity and very low C/O ratio, revealing oxygen enrichment and carbon depletion.

Contribution

It provides a robust atmospheric composition analysis of HD 209458b using combined HST and JWST data with advanced retrieval techniques, confirming solar metallicity and low C/O ratio.

Findings

Detected H₂O and CO₂ at above 7σ significance.

Measured water and CO₂ abundances consistent with solar values.

Derived a very low C/O ratio of approximately 0.054.

Abstract

HD 209458b is the prototypical hot Jupiter and one of the best targets available for precise atmosphere characterisation. Now that spectra from both Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are available, we can reveal the atmospheric properties in unprecedented detail. In this study, we perform a new data reduction and analysis of the original HST/WFC3 spectrum, accounting for the wavelength dependence of the instrument systematics that was not considered in previous analyses. This allows us to precisely and robustly measure the much-debated H$_2$O abundance in HD 209458b's atmosphere. We combine the newly reduced spectrum with archival JWST/NIRCam data and run free chemistry atmospheric retrievals over the 1.0 - 5.1 $\mu$m wavelength range, covering possible features of multiple absorbing species, including CO$_2$, CO, CH$_4$, NH$_3$, HCN, Na, SO$_2$, and H$_2$S. We detect H$_2$O and CO$_2$ robustly at above 7 $\sigma$ significance, and find a 3.6 $\sigma$ preference for cloudy models compared to a clear atmosphere. For all other absorbers we tested, only upper limits of abundance can be measured. We use Bayesian model averaging to account for a range of different assumptions about the cloud properties, resulting in a water volume mixing ratio of $0.95^{+0.35}_{-0.17} \:\times$ solar and a carbon dioxide abundance of $0.94^{+0.16}_{-0.09} \:\times$ solar. Both results are consistent with solar values and comparable to predictions from the VULCAN 1D photochemistry model. Combining these values with a prior on the CO abundance from ground-based measurements, we derive an overall atmospheric composition comparable to solar metallicity of $\mathrm{[M/H]} = 0.10^{+0.41}_{-0.40}$ and very low C/O of $0.054^{+0.080}_{-0.034}$ with a 3 $\sigma$ upper limit of 0.454. This indicates a strong enrichment in oxygen and depletion in carbon during HD 209458b's formation.