Related papers: A population study of gaseous exoplanets
Population studies of exoplanets are key to unlocking their statistical properties. So far the inferred properties have been mostly limited to planetary, orbital and stellar parameters extracted from, e.g., Kepler, radial velocity, and GAIA…
Over the last decade, precise exoplanet transmission spectroscopy has revealed the atmospheres of dozens of exoplanets, driven largely by observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope. One major discovery has been the ubiquity of…
With over 1800 planets discovered outside of the Solar System in the past two decades, the field of exoplanetology has broadened our perspective on planetary systems. Research priorities are now moving from planet detection to planet…
The best-characterized exoplanets to date are planets on close-in transiting orbits around their host stars. The high level of irradiation and transiting geometry of these objects make them ideal targets for atmospheric investigations.…
One of the most outstanding issues in exoplanet characterization is understanding the prevalence of obscuring clouds and hazes in their atmospheres. The ability to predict the presence of clouds/hazes a priori is an important goal when…
Detection of water vapor in the atmosphere of temperate rocky exoplanets would be a major milestone on the path towards characterization of exoplanet habitability. Past modeling work has shown that cloud formation may prevent the detection…
We present the analysis of the atmospheres of 70 gaseous extrasolar planets via transit spectroscopy with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). For over half of these, we statistically detect spectral modulation which our retrievals…
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a key chemical species that is found in a wide range of planetary atmospheres. In the context of exoplanets, CO2 is an indicator of the metal enrichment (i.e., elements heavier than helium, also called…
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…
Exoplanets that orbit close to their host stars are much more highly irradiated than their Solar System counterparts. Understanding the thermal structures and appearances of these planets requires investigating how their atmospheres respond…
At the dawn of the first discovery of exoplanets orbiting sun-like stars in the mid-1990s, few believed that observations of exoplanet atmospheres would ever be possible. After the 2002 Hubble Space Telescope detection of a transiting…
Since planets were first discovered outside our own Solar System in 1992 (around a pulsar) and in 1995 (around a main sequence star), extrasolar planet studies have become one of the most dynamic research fields in astronomy. Now that more…
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…
There has been increasing progress toward detailed characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres, in both observations and theoretical methods. Improvements in observational facilities and data reduction and analysis techniques are enabling…
With observational efforts moving from the discovery into the characterisation mode, systematic campaigns that cover large ranges of global stellar and planetary parameters will be needed. We aim to uncover cloud formation trends and…
Atmospheric temperature and planetary gravity are thought to be the main parameters affecting cloud formation in giant exoplanet atmospheres. Recent attempts to understand cloud formation have explored wide regions of the equilibrium…
To date, the ability for observers to reveal the composition or thermal structure of an exoplanet's atmosphere has rested on two techniques: high-contrast direct imaging and time-series observations of transiting exoplanets. The former is…
Producing optimized and accurate transmission spectra of exoplanets from telescope data has traditionally been a manual and labor-intensive procedure. Here we present the results of the first attempt to improve and standardize this…
We present a population study of 20 exoplanets, ranging from Neptune-like to inflated hot-Jupiter planets, observed during transit with the STIS and WFC3 instruments aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. To obtain spectral information from the…
A variety of terrestrial planets with different physical parameters and exotic atmospheres might plausibly exist outside our Solar System, waiting to be detected by the next generation of space-exploration missions. Some of these planets…