WINERED Detects a Strong Atmospheric Outflow on the Sub-Neptune GJ 3090b

Shreyas Vissapragada; Zifan Lin; Annabella Meech; Collin Cherubim; Leonardo A. Dos Santos; Aaron Householder; Krishna Kanumalla; Mercedes Lopez-Morales; Andrew McWilliam; William Misener; Ava Morrissey; Morgan Saidel; Jessica J. Spake; Johanna Teske; Nicole L. Wallack

arXiv · 2609.14704

WINERED Detects a Strong Atmospheric Outflow on the Sub-Neptune GJ 3090b

Shreyas Vissapragada·Zifan Lin·Annabella Meech·Collin Cherubim·Leonardo A. Dos Santos·Aaron Householder·Krishna Kanumalla·Mercedes Lopez-Morales·Andrew McWilliam·William Misener·Ava Morrissey·Morgan Saidel·Jessica J. Spake·Johanna Teske·Nicole L. Wallack

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Abstract

Sub-Neptunes are the most common short-period ($P<100$ d) planets known. A major goal for the field is to build a comprehensive understanding of their compositions and evolutionary histories, and an important tool for achieving this goal is metastable helium (He$^*$) transmission spectroscopy, which traces atmospheric escape. In this paper, we report the detection of He$^*$ in the atmosphere of the sub-Neptune GJ 3090b at high spectral resolution. We observed two consecutive transits of this planet with Magellan II/WINERED, and detected peak He$^*$ absorptions during transit of $2.033\pm0.086\%$ (23.6$σ$) and $1.619\pm0.122\%$ (13.3$σ$), respectively. The first transit was affected by a stellar flare near egress while the second transit was unaffected. The signal is variable in amplitude and deeper than anticipated by the JWST/NIRISS observations of Ahrer et al. (2025). We do not observe a significant Doppler shift, and the signal has a FWHM of $25$ km s$^{-1}$, implicating photoevaporation. Our outflow modeling suggests that $Z_\mathrm{atm}\lesssim100\times$ solar, as the observed He$^*$ amplitudes are challenging to achieve in a metal-rich atmosphere. To match the muted transmission spectra from JWST and VLT/CRIRES+, GJ 3090b's lower atmosphere is likely covered by aerosols. Finally, we found that GJ 3090b has an atmospheric lifetime of $\sim300$ Myr, much shorter than previously reported. This adolescent ($\sim1$ Gyr) sub-Neptune is currently in a transformative phase of photoevaporative evolution.

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Shreyas Vissapragada, Zifan Lin, Annabella Meech, Collin Cherubim, Leonardo A. Dos Santos, Aaron Householder, Krishna Kanumalla, Mercedes Lopez-Morales, Andrew McWilliam, William Misener, Ava Morrissey, Morgan Saidel, Jessica J. Spake, Johanna Teske, Nicole L. Wallack. 2026-09-13. WINERED Detects a Strong Atmospheric Outflow on the Sub-Neptune GJ 3090b. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.14704

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