SO 2 , silicate clouds, but no CH 4 detected in a warm Neptune.

WASP-107b is a warm (approximately 740 K) transiting planet with a Neptune-like mass of roughly 30.5 M _⊕ and Jupiter-like radius of about 0.94 R _J (refs.  ^1,2 ), whose extended atmosphere is eroding ³ . Previous observations showed evidence for water vapour and a thick, high-altitude condensate layer in the atmosphere of WASP-107b (refs.  ^4,5 ). Recently, photochemically produced sulfur dioxide (SO ₂ ) was detected in the atmosphere of a hot (about 1,200 K) Saturn-mass planet from transmission spectroscopy near 4.05 μm (refs.  ^6,7 ), but for temperatures below about 1,000 K, sulfur is predicted to preferably form sulfur allotropes instead of SO ₂ (refs.  ^8-10 ). Here we report the 9σ detection of two fundamental vibration bands of SO ₂ , at 7.35 μm and 8.69 μm, in the transmission spectrum of WASP-107b using the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) of JWST. This discovery establishes WASP-107b as the second irradiated exoplanet with confirmed photochemistry, extending the temperature range of exoplanets exhibiting detected photochemistry from about 1,200 K down to about 740 K. Furthermore, our spectral analysis reveals the presence of silicate clouds, which are strongly favoured (around 7σ) over simpler cloud set-ups. Furthermore, water is detected (around 12σ) but methane is not. These findings provide evidence of disequilibrium chemistry and indicate a dynamically active atmosphere with a super-solar metallicity.
(© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)