Related papers: A False Positive For Ocean Glint on Exoplanets: th…
The planetary obliquity plays a significant role in determining physical properties of planetary surfaces and climate. As direct detection is constrained due to the present observation accuracy, kinetic theories are helpful to predict the…
Direct-imaging spectra hold rich information about a planet's atmosphere and surface, and several space-based missions aiming at such observations will become a reality in the near future. Previous spectral retrieval works have resulted in…
The disk-integrated reflected brightness of an exoplanet changes as a function of time due to orbital and rotational motion coupled with an inhomogeneous albedo map. We have previously derived analytic reflected lightcurves for spherical…
The identification of an extrasolar planet as Earth-like will depend on the detection of atmospheric signatures or surface non-uniformities. In this paper we present spatially unresolved flux light curves of Earth for the purpose of…
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…
The phase or orbital light curves of extrasolar terrestrial planets in reflected or emitted light will contain information about their atmospheres and surfaces complementary to data obtained by other techniques such as spectrosopy. We show…
At optical wavelengths, an exoplanet's signature is essentially reflected light from the host star - several orders of magnitude fainter. Since it is superimposed on the star spectrum its detection has been a difficult observational…
Photometry of short-period planetary systems allows astronomers to monitor exoplanets, their host stars, and their mutual interactions. In addition to the transits of a planet in front of its star and the eclipses of the planet by its star,…
With the recent discoveries of hundreds of extrasolar planets, the search for planets like Earth and life in the universe, is quickly gaining momentum. In the future, large space observatories could directly detect the light scattered from…
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…
Past work has shown that ocean salinity and planetary obliquity both influence the climates of Earth-like exoplanets throughout the habitable zone of Sun-like stars. The effects of salinity and obliquity can be profound, with low vs. high…
The upcoming launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) means that we will soon have the capability to characterize the atmospheres of rocky exoplanets. However, it is still unknown whether such planets orbiting close to M dwarf stars…
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…
Planned missions will spatially resolve temperate terrestrial planets from their host star. Although reflected light from such a planet encodes information about its surface, it has not been shown how to establish surface characteristics of…
Characterizing the surfaces of rocky exoplanets via the scattered light will be an essential challenge to investigate the existence of life on habitable exoplanets. We present a simple reconstruction method for fractional areas of different…
Variations in the reflective properties of the bulk material that comprises the surface of land-dominated planets will affect the planetary energy balance by interacting differently with incident radiation from the host star. Furthermore,…
The characterization of nearby rocky exoplanets will become feasible with the next generation of telescopes, such as the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) and the mission concept Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO). Using an improved model…
Future direct-imaging exoplanet missions such as WFIRST/AFTA, Exo-C, and Exo-S will measure the reflectivity of exoplanets at visible wavelengths. The exoplanets to be observed will be located further away from their parent stars than is…
Studying the albedos of the planets and moons of the Solar System dates back at least a century. Of particular interest is the relationship between the albedo measured at superior conjunction, known as the ``geometric albedo", and the…
Future high precision photometric measurements of transiting extrasolar planets promise to tell us much about the nature of these systems. We examine how atmospheric lensing and (projected) planet oblateness/ellipticity modify transit light…