Promise and Peril: Stellar Contamination and Strict Limits on the Atmosphere Composition of TRAPPIST-1 c from JWST NIRISS Transmission Spectra
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Attempts to probe the atmospheres of rocky planets around M dwarfs present both promise and peril. While their favorable planet-to-star radius ratios enable searches for even thin secondary atmospheres, their high activity levels and high-energy outputs threaten atmosphere survival. Here we present the 0.6–2.85 μm transmission spectrum of the 1.1 R ⊕, ∼ 340 K rocky planet TRAPPIST-1 c obtained over two JWST NIRISS/SOSS transit observations. Each of the two spectra displays 100–500 ppm signatures of stellar contamination. Despite being separated by 367 days, the retrieved spot and facula properties are consistent between the two visits, resulting in nearly identical transmission spectra. Jointly retrieving for stellar contamination and a planetary atmosphere reveals that our spectrum can rule out hydrogen-dominated, ≲300× solar metallicity atmospheres with effective surface pressures down to 10 mbar at the 3σ level. For high mean molecular weight atmospheres, where O2 or N2 is the background gas, our spectrum disfavors partial pressures of more than ∼10 mbar for H2O, CO, NH3, and CH4 at the 2σ level. Similarly, under the assumption of a 100% H2O, NH3, CO, or CH4 atmosphere, our spectrum disfavors thick, >1-bar atmospheres at the 2σ level. These nondetections of spectral features are in line with predictions that even heavier, CO2-rich atmospheres would be efficiently lost on TRAPPIST-1 c given the cumulative high-energy irradiation experienced by the planet. Our results further stress the importance of robustly accounting for stellar contamination when analyzing JWST observations of exo-Earths around M dwarfs, as well as the need for high-fidelity stellar models to search for the potential signals of thin secondary atmospheres.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".