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Rathcke, Alexander D.; MacDonald, Ryan J.; Barstow, Joanna K.; Goyal, Jayesh M.; Lopez-Morales, Mercedes; Mendonça, João M.; Sanz-Forcada, Jorge; Henry, Gregory W.; Sing, David K.; Alam, Munazza K.; Lewis, Nikole K.; Chubb, Katy L.; Taylor, Jake; Nikolov, Nikolay and Buchhave, Lars A.
(2021).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ac0e99
Abstract
We present a new optical transmission spectrum of the hot Jupiter WASP-79b. We observed three transits with the STIS instrument mounted on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), spanning 0.3–1.0 μm. Combining these transits with previous observations, we construct a complete 0.3–5.0 μm transmission spectrum of WASP-79b. Both HST and ground-based observations show decreasing transit depths toward blue wavelengths, contrary to expectations from Rayleigh scattering or hazes. We infer atmospheric and stellar properties from the full near-UV to infrared transmission spectrum of WASP-79b using three independent retrieval codes, all of which yield consistent results. Our retrievals confirm previous detections of H2O (at 4.0σ confidence) while providing moderate evidence of H− bound–free opacity (3.3σ) and strong evidence of stellar contamination from unocculted faculae (4.7σ). The retrieved H2O abundance (∼1%) suggests a superstellar atmospheric metallicity, though stellar or substellar abundances remain consistent with present observations (O/H = 0.3–34× stellar). All three retrieval codes obtain a precise H− abundance constraint: log(XH-) ≈ −8.0 ± 0.7. The potential presence of H− suggests that James Webb Space Telescope observations may be sensitive to ionic chemistry in the atmosphere of WASP-79b. The inferred faculae are ∼500 K hotter than the stellar photosphere, covering ∼15% of the stellar surface. Our analysis underscores the importance of observing UV–optical transmission spectra in order to disentangle the influence of unocculted stellar heterogeneities from planetary transmission spectra.