Article Dans Une Revue Nature Astronomy Année : 2025

The role of interior dynamics and differentiation on the surface and in the atmosphere of lava planets

Charles-Édouard Boukaré
Nicolas Cowan
James Badro
Lisa Dang
Aurélien Falco
Sébastien Charnoz

Résumé

Lava planets are rocky exoplanets that orbit so close to their host star that their day-side is hot enough to melt silicate rock. Their short orbital periods ensure that lava planets are tidally locked into synchronous rotation, with permanent day and night hemispheres. Such asymmetric magma oceans have no analogs in the Solar System and will exhibit novel fluid dynamics. Here we report numerical simulations of lava planet interiors showing that solid-liquid fractionation in the planetary interior has a major impact on the compositional structure and evolution of the planet. We explored two styles of dynamics that depend primarily on the interior thermal state: 1) a hot fully molten interior, and 2) an essentially solid interior with a shallow day-side magma ocean. In the hot interior scenario, the atmosphere reflects the planet's bulk silicate composition and the night-side solid surface is gravitationally unstable and constantly replenished. In the cool interior scenario, the distilled atmosphere lacks Na, K and FeO, and the night-side mantle is entirely solid, with a cold surface. These two end-member cases can be distinguished with observations from the James Webb Space Telescope, offering an avenue to probe the thermal and chemical evolution of exoplanet interiors.

Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
Lava_Planets__4th_version_.pdf (8.65 Mo) Télécharger le fichier
Origine Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s)
Licence

Dates et versions

hal-05361228 , version 1 (12-11-2025)

Licence

Identifiants

Citer

Charles-Édouard Boukaré, Daphné Lemasquerier, Nicolas Cowan, Henri Samuel, James Badro, et al.. The role of interior dynamics and differentiation on the surface and in the atmosphere of lava planets. Nature Astronomy, 2025, 9 (10), pp.1511-1522. ⟨10.1038/s41550-025-02617-4⟩. ⟨hal-05361228⟩
345 Consultations
43 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

  • More