Related papers: Light scattering from exoplanet oceans and atmosph…
Specularly reflected light, or glint, from an ocean surface may provide a useful observational tool for studying extrasolar terrestrial planets. Detection of sea-surface glints would differentiate ocean-bearing terrestrial planets, i.e.…
We propose that astronomers will be eventually be able to discriminate between extrasolar Earth-like planets with surface oceans and those without using the shape of phase light curves in the visible and near-IR spectrum. We model the…
Planets reflect and linearly polarize the radiation that they receive from their host stars. The emergent polarization is sensitive to aspects of the planet atmosphere such as the gas composition and the occurrence of condensates and their…
Glint, the specular reflection of sunlight off Earth's oceans, may reveal the presence of oceans on an extrasolar planet. As an Earth-like planet nears crescent phases, the size of the ocean glint spot increases relative to the fraction of…
Numerical simulations of starlight that is reflected by Earth-like exoplanets predict habitability signatures that can be searched for with future telescopes. We explore signatures of water oceans in the flux and polarization spectra of…
Terrestrial exoplanets in habitable zones are ubiquitous. It is, however, unknown which have Earth-like or Venus-like climates. Distinguishing different planet-types is crucial for determining whether a planet could be habitable. We…
We investigate the intensity and polarization of reflected light from planetary atmospheres. We present a large grid of Monte Carlo simulations for planets with Rayleigh scattering atmospheres. We discuss the disk-integrated polarization…
Polarized scattering in planetary atmospheres is computed in the context of exoplanets. The problem of polarized radiative transfer is solved for a general case of absorption and scattering, while Rayleigh and Mie polarized scattering are…
Earthshine observations offer a unique opportunity to study Earth as an exoplanet seen from the Moon. As the Sun-Earth-Moon geometry changes, Earth can be observed as a spatially unresolved exoplanet at different phase angles, providing…
At optical wavelengths, Titan's brightness for large Sun-Titan-observer phase angles significantly exceeds its dayside brightness. The brightening that occurs near back-illumination is due to moderately large haze particles in the moon's…
We report the first direct detection of an exoplanet in the visible polarized light. The transiting planet HD189733b is one of the very hot Jupiters with shortest periods and, thus, smallest orbits, which makes them ideal candidates for…
An exoplanet's habitability will depend strongly on the presence of liquid water. Flux and/or polarization measurements of starlight that is reflected by exoplanets could help to identify exo-oceans. We investigate which broadband spectral…
We calculate the degree of linear polarization of radiation from stars having planets that may not be resolved spatially. We assume single scattering by water and silicate particulates in the planetary atmosphere. The dilution of the…
Polarimetry of extrasolar planets becomes a new tool for their investigation, which requires the development of diagnostic techniques and parameter case studies. Our goal is to develop a theoretical model which can be applied to interpret…
The polarization state of starlight reflected by a planetary atmosphere uniquely reveals coverage, particle size, and composition of aerosols as well as changing cloud patterns. It is not possible to obtain a comparable level of detailed…
[Abridged] The transmission of light through a planetary atmosphere can be studied as a function of altitude and wavelength using stellar or solar occultations, giving often unique constraints on the atmospheric composition. For exoplanets,…
Before an exoplanet transit, atmospheric refraction bends light into the line of sight of an observer. The refracted light forms a stellar mirage, a distorted secondary image of the host star. I model this phenomenon and the resultant…
Context. Clouds have already been detected in exoplanetary atmospheres. They play crucial roles in a planet's atmosphere and climate and can also create ambiguities in the determination of atmospheric parameters such as trace gas mixing…
It is becoming clear that the atmospheres of the young, self-luminous extrasolar giant planets imaged to date are dusty. Planets with dusty atmospheres may exhibit detectable amounts of linear polarization in the near-infrared, as has been…
New observational facilities are becoming increasingly capable of observing reflected light from transiting and directly imaged extrasolar planets. In this study, we provide an analytic framework to interpret observed phase curves,…