Image Details

Choose export citation format:

JWST Unveils a High Mean Molecular Weight Atmosphere for Mini-Neptune TOI-1130 b: Evidence for Formation Beyond the Water Ice Line

  • Authors: Saugata Barat, Tyler Fairnington, Shelby Courreges, Chelsea Huang, Andrew Vanderburg, Caroline V. Morley, Judith Korth, Hannu Parviainen, Alexis Brandeker, George Zhou, Thomas M. Evans-Soma, Lizhou Sha, Douglas N. C. Lin, Duncan Wright, Ava Morrissey, Emma Nabbie, Karen A. Collins, Phil Evans, Tristan Guillot, Keith Horne, Don J. Radford, Richard P. Schwarz, Avi Shporer, Gregorg Srdoc, Olga Suarez

Saugata Barat et al 2026 The Astrophysical Journal Letters 1002 .

  • Provider: AAS Journals

Caption: Figure 7.

Mean molecular weight (μ) of mini- and super-Neptunes as a function of equilibrium temperature. The μ values are taken from the literature and shown in Table D1. We show TOI-1130 b in this figure. We calculate the mean molecular weight from the posterior distribution of the equilibrium chemistry retrieval (Section 4.3). The blue vertical line marks the critical temperature for the condensation of water (350 K) as proposed in N. Madhusudhan et al. (2025). The schematic on the right demonstrates this idea. Above the critical temperature, the water in the planet is vaporized and mixed with the H/He envelope to form either H2–H2O mixed envelopes (miscible envelope mini-Neptunes) or steam-dominated envelopes (steam worlds). The intermediate μ value of TOI-1130 b likely aligns it with the miscible envelope mini-Neptunes.

Other Images in This Article

Show More

Copyright and Terms & Conditions

Additional terms of reuse