Related papers: Potential Biosignatures in Super-Earth Atmospheres
Recent observations of several planet-hosting M dwarfs show that most have FUV/NUV flux ratios 1000 times greater than that of the Sun. Here we show that the atmospheric oxygen contents (O2 and O3) of potentially habitable planets in this…
Exoplanets in the ultra-hot Jupiter regime provide an excellent laboratory for testing the impact of stellar irradiation on the dynamics and chemical composition of gas giant atmospheres. In this study, we observed two transits of the…
Stellar flares of active M dwarfs can affect the atmospheric composition of close-orbiting gas giants, and can result in time-dependent transmission spectra. We aim to examine the impact of a variety of flares, differing in energy,…
M-stars comprise 80% of main-sequence stars, and so their planetary systems provide the best chance for finding habitable planets, i.e.: those with surface liquid water. We have modelled the broadband albedo or reflectivity of water ice and…
We report high precision spectrophotometric observations of four planetary transits of HD 209458, in the region of the sodium resonance doublet at 589.3 nm. We find that the photometric dimming during transit in a bandpass centered on the…
The energy balance and climate of planets can be affected by the reflective properties of their land, ocean, and frozen surfaces. Here we investigate the effect of host star spectral energy distribution (SED) on the albedo of these surfaces…
Exoplanets with radii between those of Earth and Neptune have stronger surface gravity than Earth, and can retain a sizable hydrogen-dominated atmosphere. In contrast to gas giant planets, we call these planets gas dwarf planets. The James…
Many parameters constraining the spectral appearance of exoplanets are still poorly understood. We therefore study the properties of irradiated exoplanet atmospheres over a wide parameter range including metallicity, C/O ratio and host…
We present Spitzer Space Telescope infrared photometric time series of the transiting extrasolar planet system TrES-1. The data span a predicted time of secondary eclipse, corresponding to the passage of the planet behind the star. In both…
Studies of the atmospheres of hot Jupiters reveal a diversity of atmospheric composition and haze properties. Similar studies on individual smaller, temperate planets are rare due to the inherent difficulty of the observations and also to…
We propose a method for observing transiting exoplanets with near-infrared high-resolution spectrometers. We aim to create a robust data analysis method for recovering atmospheric transmission spectra from transiting exoplanets over a wide…
We present an analytic model for the interaction between planetary atmospheres and stellar winds from main sequence M stars, with the purpose of obtaining a quick test-model that estimates the timescale for total atmospheric mass loss due…
The ice-albedo feedback is a potentially important de-stabilizing effect for the climate of terrestrial planets. It is based on the positive feedback between decreasing surface temperatures, an increase of snow and ice cover and an…
Observed exoplanet transit spectra are usually retrieved using 1D models to determine atmospheric composition while planetary atmospheres are 3D. With the JWST and future space telescopes such as Ariel, we will be able to obtain…
The occurrence of a planet transiting in front of its host star offers the opportunity to observe the planet's atmosphere filtering starlight. The fraction of occulted stellar flux is roughly proportional to the optically thick area of the…
In this study, we treat Earth as an exoplanet and investigate our home planet by means of a potential future mid-infrared (MIR) space mission called the Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE). We combine thermal spectra from an…
Nearby M dwarf systems currently offer the most favorable opportunities for spectroscopic investigations of terrestrial exoplanet atmospheres. The LTT~1445 system is a hierarchical triple of M dwarfs with two known planets orbiting the…
Efforts to spectrally characterize the atmospheric compositions of temperate terrestrial exoplanets orbiting M-dwarf stars with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are now underway. Key molecular targets of such searches include O$_2$ and…
The conventional observables to identify a habitable or inhabited environment in exoplanets, such as an ocean glint or abundant atmospheric O$_2$, will be challenging to detect with present or upcoming observatories. Here we suggest a new…
Within the next decade, atmospheric O$_2$ on Earth-like M dwarf planets may be accessible with visible--near-infrared, high spectral resolution extremely large ground-based telescope (ELT) instruments. However, the prospects for using ELTs…