_version_ 1866912574025498624
author Espinoza, Néstor
Allen, Natalie H.
Glidden, Ana
Lewis, Nikole K.
Seager, Sara
Cañas, Caleb I.
Grant, David
Gressier, Amélie
Courreges, Shelby
Stevenson, Kevin B.
Ranjan, Sukrit
Colón, Knicole
Morris, Brett M.
MacDonald, Ryan J.
Long, Douglas
Wakeford, Hannah R.
Valenti, Jeff A.
Alderson, Lili
Batalha, Natasha E.
Challener, Ryan C.
Huang, Jingcheng
Lin, Zifan
Louie, Dana R.
Mullens, Elijah
Valentine, Daniel
Mountain, C. Matt
Pueyo, Laurent
Perrin, Marshall D.
Bellini, Andrea
Kammerer, Jens
Libralato, Mattia
Rebollido, Isabel
Rickman, Emily
Sohn, Sangmo Tony
van der Marel, Roeland P.
author_facet Espinoza, Néstor
Allen, Natalie H.
Glidden, Ana
Lewis, Nikole K.
Seager, Sara
Cañas, Caleb I.
Grant, David
Gressier, Amélie
Courreges, Shelby
Stevenson, Kevin B.
Ranjan, Sukrit
Colón, Knicole
Morris, Brett M.
MacDonald, Ryan J.
Long, Douglas
Wakeford, Hannah R.
Valenti, Jeff A.
Alderson, Lili
Batalha, Natasha E.
Challener, Ryan C.
Huang, Jingcheng
Lin, Zifan
Louie, Dana R.
Mullens, Elijah
Valentine, Daniel
Mountain, C. Matt
Pueyo, Laurent
Perrin, Marshall D.
Bellini, Andrea
Kammerer, Jens
Libralato, Mattia
Rebollido, Isabel
Rickman, Emily
Sohn, Sangmo Tony
van der Marel, Roeland P.
contents TRAPPIST-1 e is one of the very few rocky exoplanets that is both amenable to atmospheric characterization and that resides in the habitable zone of its star -- located at a distance from its star such that it might, with the right atmosphere, sustain liquid water on its surface. Here, we present a set of 4 JWST/NIRSpec PRISM transmission spectra of TRAPPIST-1 e obtained from mid to late 2023. Our transmission spectra exhibit similar levels of stellar contamination as observed in prior works for other planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system (Lim et al, 2023; Radica et al., 2024), but over a wider wavelength range, showcasing the challenge of characterizing the TRAPPIST-1 planets even at relatively long wavelengths (3-5 um). While we show that current stellar modeling frameworks are unable to explain the stellar contamination features in our spectra, we demonstrate that we can marginalize over those features instead using Gaussian Processes, which enables us to perform novel exoplanet atmospheric inferences with our transmission spectra. In particular, we are able to rule out cloudy, primary H$_2$-dominated ($\gtrsim$ 80$\%$ by volume) atmospheres at better than a 3$σ$ level. Constraints on possible secondary atmospheres on TRAPPIST-1 e are presented in a companion paper (Glidden et al., 2025). Our work showcases how JWST is breaking ground into the precisions needed to constrain the atmospheric composition of habitable-zone rocky exoplanets.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_05414
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle JWST-TST DREAMS: NIRSpec/PRISM Transmission Spectroscopy of the Habitable Zone Planet TRAPPIST-1 e
Espinoza, Néstor
Allen, Natalie H.
Glidden, Ana
Lewis, Nikole K.
Seager, Sara
Cañas, Caleb I.
Grant, David
Gressier, Amélie
Courreges, Shelby
Stevenson, Kevin B.
Ranjan, Sukrit
Colón, Knicole
Morris, Brett M.
MacDonald, Ryan J.
Long, Douglas
Wakeford, Hannah R.
Valenti, Jeff A.
Alderson, Lili
Batalha, Natasha E.
Challener, Ryan C.
Huang, Jingcheng
Lin, Zifan
Louie, Dana R.
Mullens, Elijah
Valentine, Daniel
Mountain, C. Matt
Pueyo, Laurent
Perrin, Marshall D.
Bellini, Andrea
Kammerer, Jens
Libralato, Mattia
Rebollido, Isabel
Rickman, Emily
Sohn, Sangmo Tony
van der Marel, Roeland P.
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
TRAPPIST-1 e is one of the very few rocky exoplanets that is both amenable to atmospheric characterization and that resides in the habitable zone of its star -- located at a distance from its star such that it might, with the right atmosphere, sustain liquid water on its surface. Here, we present a set of 4 JWST/NIRSpec PRISM transmission spectra of TRAPPIST-1 e obtained from mid to late 2023. Our transmission spectra exhibit similar levels of stellar contamination as observed in prior works for other planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system (Lim et al, 2023; Radica et al., 2024), but over a wider wavelength range, showcasing the challenge of characterizing the TRAPPIST-1 planets even at relatively long wavelengths (3-5 um). While we show that current stellar modeling frameworks are unable to explain the stellar contamination features in our spectra, we demonstrate that we can marginalize over those features instead using Gaussian Processes, which enables us to perform novel exoplanet atmospheric inferences with our transmission spectra. In particular, we are able to rule out cloudy, primary H$_2$-dominated ($\gtrsim$ 80$\%$ by volume) atmospheres at better than a 3$σ$ level. Constraints on possible secondary atmospheres on TRAPPIST-1 e are presented in a companion paper (Glidden et al., 2025). Our work showcases how JWST is breaking ground into the precisions needed to constrain the atmospheric composition of habitable-zone rocky exoplanets.
title JWST-TST DREAMS: NIRSpec/PRISM Transmission Spectroscopy of the Habitable Zone Planet TRAPPIST-1 e
topic Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.05414