The Hazik Theory of Heat: Reevaluating the Hottest Planet in the Solar System

Bulletin of the AAS, 2021

We introduce a new thermochemical kinetics and photochemical model. We use high-temperature bidirectional reaction rates for important H, C, O and N reactions (most importantly for CH 4 to CO interconversion), allowing us to attain thermochemical equilibrium, deep in an atmosphere, purely kinetically. This allows ab initio chemical modeling of an entire atmosphere, from deep-atmosphere thermochemical equilibrium to the photochemically dominated regime. We use our model to explore the atmospheric chemistry of cooler (T ef f < 10 3 K) extrasolar giant planets. In particular, we choose to model the nearby hot Neptune GJ436b, the only planet in this temperature regime for which spectroscopic measurements and estimates of chemical abundances now exist. Recent Spitzer measurements with retrieval have shown that methane is driven strongly out of equilibrium and is deeply depleted on the dayside of GJ 436b, whereas quenched carbon monoxide is abundant. This is surprising because GJ 436b is cooler than many of the heavily irradiated hot Jovians and thermally favorable for CH 4 , and thus requires an efficient mechanism for destroying it. We include realistic estimates of ultraviolet flux from the parent dM star GJ 436, to bound the direct photolysis and photosensitized depletion of CH 4 . While our models indicate fairly rich disequilibrium conditions are likely in cooler exoplanets over a range of planetary metallicities, we are unable to generate the conditions for substantial CH 4 destruction. One possibility is an anomalous source of abundant H atoms between 0.01-1 bars (which attack CH 4 ), but we cannot as yet identify an efficient means to produce these hot atoms. Subject headings: planetary systems -planets and satellites: atmospheres -planets and satellites:

Energy Environment, 2009

The Sun encompasses planet Earth, supplies the heat that warms it, and even shakes it. The United Nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assumed that solar influence on our climate is limited to changes in solar irradiance and adopted the consensus opinion of a Hydrogen-filled Sun, the Standard Solar Model (SSM). They did not consider the alternative solar model and instead adopted another consensus opinion: Anthropogenic greenhouse gases play a dominant role in climate change. The SSM fails to explain the solar wind, solar cycles, and the empirical link of solar surface activity with Earth changing climate. The alternative solar model, that was molded from an embarrassingly large number of unexpected observations revealed by space-age measurements since 1959, explains not only these puzzles but also how closely linked interactions between the Sun and its planets and other celestial bodies induce turbulent cycles of secondary solar characteristics that significantly affect Earth climate.

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 2012

Since its discovery at Jupiter in 1988, emission from H has been used as a valuable diagnostic tool in our understanding of the upper atmospheres of the giant planets. One of the lasting questions we have about the giant planets is why the measured upper atmosphere temperatures are always consistently hotter than the temperatures expected from solar heating alone. Here, we describe how H forms across each of the planetary disks of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus, presenting the first observations of equatorial H at Saturn and the first profile of H emission at Uranus not significantly distorted by the effects of the Earth&#39;s atmosphere. We also review past observations of variations in temperature measured at Uranus and Jupiter over a wide variety of time scales. To this, we add new observations of temperature changes at Saturn, using observations by Cassini. We conclude that the causes of the significant level of thermal variability observed over all three planets is not only an impo...

2009

We report on the discovery of WASP-12b, a new transiting extrasolar planet with R pl = 1.79 ± 0.09R J and M pl = 1.41 ± 0.1M J . The planet and host star properties were derived from a Monte Carlo Markov Chain analysis of the transit photometry and radial velocity data. Furthermore, by comparing the stellar spectrum with theoretical spectra and stellar evolution models, we determined that the host star is a super-solar metallicity ([M/H]= 0.3 +0.05 −0.15 ), late-F (T eff = 6300 +200 −100 K) star which is evolving off the zero age main sequence. The planet has an equilibrium temperature of T eq =2516 K caused by its very short period orbit (P = 1.09 days) around the hot, 12th magnitude host star. WASP-12b has the largest radius of any transiting planet yet detected. It is also the most heavily irradiated and the shortest period planet in the literature.

Journal of Geophysical Research, 1983

Gross similarities between earth and Venus suggest that both planets might be expected to lose heat by the same mechanism. Available data do not resolve plate tectonics on Venus, however, and other heat loss mechanisms, such as hot spot heat loss, have been suggested. Using a model which gives a relationship among surface elevation, lithospheric thickness, and heat flux, we test the hot spot heat loss mechanism for Venus and determine that it can easily explain the predicted heat loss of the planet with a modest number of hot spots (of the order of 35). Approximately 93% of the mapped topography of Venus can be explained solely on the basis of lithospheric thickness variations. Additional compensation is required for topography above a radius of 6053 km, and this can be effected by incorporating a variable thickness crust into the model. If crust is assumed to be generated on the crests of the hot spots, probably by processes associated with volcanism, the model is consistent with almost 99% of the mapped Venus topography. The model is also basically consistent with available gravity data and interpretations which indicate compensated topography and great depths of compensation (100-1000 km) for the mid-latitudes of the planet. The remaining approximately 1% of the topography not explained by hot spot crustal generation is thought to be compensated at a shallower depth primarily by variations in crustal thickness which are not directly related to hot spot volcanism. The models, relating surface elevation to lithospheric thickness and heat flow, are grossly consistent with either a plate tectonic or hot spot heat loss mechanism for Venus. The range of lithospheric thicknesses implied by the range of elevations on Venus implies that if plate tectonics is the dominant heat loss mechanism on Venus, the mean plate velocities are slower than on earth. Slow spreading ridges should be resolvable by the available Venus topographic data but are not apparent.

2021

Comparison of the atmospheres of Venus, Earth and Mars in terms of carbon dioxide content is considered as evidence of the existence of the greenhouse effect (IPCC report, 1990). However, the applicability of the ideal gas equation to the description of the properties of the atmosphere of Venus and the Earth shows that the temperature of the gas is determined by the total atmospheric pressure, and not by the ability of molecules to absorb or not absorb infrared radiation.

The Astrophysical Journal, 2008

Extra-solar planets close to their host stars have likely undergone significant tidal evolution since the time of their formation. Tides probably dominated their orbital evolution once the dust and gas had cleared away, and as the orbits evolved there was substantial tidal heating within the planets. The tidal heating history of each planet may have contributed significantly to the thermal budget that governed the planet's physical properties, including its radius, which in many cases may be measured by observing transit events. Typically, tidal heating increases as a planet moves inward toward its star and then decreases as its orbit circularizes. Here we compute the plausible heating histories for several planets with measured radii, using the same tidal parameters for the star and planet that had been shown to reconcile the eccentricity distribution of close-in planets with other extra-solar planets. Several planets are discussed, including for example HD 209458 b, which may have undergone substantial tidal heating during the past billion years, perhaps enough to explain its large measured radius. Our models also show that GJ 876 d may have experienced tremendous heating and is probably not a solid, rocky planet. Theoretical models should include the role of tidal heating, which is large, but time-varying.

Ice on the night-side surface of Jupiter's moon Europa could emit a unique glow, according to US-based scientists Murthy Gudipati, Bryana Henderson at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Fred Bateman at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. [44] A new method for verifying a widely held but unproven theoretical explanation of the formation of stars and planets has been proposed by researchers at the U.S.