Related papers: Potential Biosignatures in Super-Earth Atmospheres

The characterization of the atmospheres of habitable-zone Earth-mass exoplanets that transit across main-sequence stars, let alone the detection of bio-markers in their atmospheres, will be challenging even with future facilities. It has…

Atmospheric refraction affects to various degrees exoplanet transit, lunar eclipse, as well as stellar occultation observations. Exoplanet retrieval algorithms often use analytical expressions for the column abundance along a ray traversing…

Thousands of transiting exoplanets have already been detected orbiting a wide range of host stars, including the first planets that could potentially be similar to Earth. The upcoming Extremely Large Telescopes and the James Webb Space…

Exoplanetary science is among the fastest evolving fields of today's astronomical research. Ground-based planet-hunting surveys alongside dedicated space missions (Kepler, CoRoT) are delivering an ever-increasing number of exoplanets, now…

One of the great quests of astronomy is to obtain the spectrum of a terrestrial planet orbiting within the habitable zone of its star, and the dominant challenge in doing so is to isolate the light of the planet from that of the star.…

We highlight a physical effect that is often not considered that impacts the calculation of model spectra of planets at secondary eclipse, affecting both emission and reflection spectra. The radius of the emitting surface of the planet is…

An increasing number of potentially habitable terrestrial planets and planet candidates are found by ongoing planet search programs. The search for atmospheric signatures to establish planetary habitability and the presence of life might be…

Warm rocky exoplanets within the habitable zone of Sun-like stars are favoured targets for current and future missions. Theory indicates these planets could be wet at formation and remain habitable long enough for life to develop. In this…

We present a retrieval method based on Bayesian analysis to infer the atmospheric compositions and surface or cloud-top pressures from transmission spectra of exoplanets with general compositions. In this study, we identify what can…

We present a new method to probe atmospheric pressure on Earthlike planets using (O2-O2) dimers in the near-infrared. We also show that dimer features could be the most readily detectable biosignatures for Earthlike atmospheres, and may…

We present new 3.6 and 4.5 micron secondary eclipse measurements for five cool (less than approximately 1000 K) transiting gas giant planets: HAT-P-15b, HAT-P-17b, HAT-P-18b, HAT-P-26b, and WASP-69b. We detect eclipses in at least one…

Planets residing in circumstellar habitable zones (CHZs) offer our best opportunities to test hypotheses of life's potential pervasiveness and complexity. Constraining the precise boundaries of habitability and its observational…

The coldest Y spectral type brown dwarfs are similar in mass and temperature to cool and warm ($\sim$200 -- 400 K) giant exoplanets. We can therefore use their atmospheres as proxies for planetary atmospheres, testing our understanding of…

We highlight the importance of gaseous TiO and VO opacity on the highly irradiated close-in giant planets. The atmospheres of these planets naturally fall into two classes that are somewhat analogous to the M- and L-type dwarfs. Those that…

We explore how well James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) spectra will likely constrain bulk atmospheric properties of transiting exoplanets. We start by modeling the atmospheres of archetypal hot Jupiter, warm Neptune, warm sub-Neptune, and…

The relative abundance of deuterium and hydrogen is a potent tracer of planet formation and evolution. Jupiter and Saturn have protosolar atmospheric D/H ratios, a relic of substantial gas accretion from the nebula, while the atmospheres of…

The majority of potentially habitable exoplanets detected orbit stars cooler than the Sun, and therefore are irradiated by a stellar spectrum peaking at longer wavelengths than that incident on Earth. Here, we present results from a set of…

Atmospheric temperatures are to be estimated from thermal emission spectra of Earth-like exoplanets orbiting M-stars as observed by current and future planned missions. To this end, a line-by-line radiative transfer code is used to generate…

With the discovery of ever smaller and colder exoplanets, terrestrial worlds with hazy atmospheres must be increasingly considered. Our Solar System's Titan is a prototypical hazy planet, whose atmosphere may be representative of a large…

Absorption of high-energy radiation in planetary thermospheres is believed to lead to the formation of planetary winds. The resulting mass-loss rates can affect the evolution, particularly of small gas planets. We present 1D, spherically…