Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2025/iii/paper-315/1/c/solution

The peak near can be reflected starlight carrying the stellar spectral shape, while the peak can be thermal emission from a very hot, young, or strongly irradiated planet. Wien displacement law then suggests and , so .
Assume both objects are in the far-infrared Rayleigh-Jeans law regime. From
one obtains . With and ,
of order a Neptune radius. This estimate is sensitive to the peak interpretation and blackbody assumptions.
If the system transits, secondary-eclipse emission spectroscopy is especially effective because it separates planetary light from starlight and directly measures the favorable infrared contrast. For a sufficiently wide orbit, direct-imaging spectroscopy is preferable because the hot planet is self-luminous and can be spatially separated from its star.

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