Related papers: Mapping Exoplanets
What kind of environment may exist on terrestrial planets around other stars? In spite of the lack of direct observations, it may not be premature to speculate on exoplanetary climates, for instance to optimize future telescopic…
Clouds also form in atmospheres of planets that orbit other stars than our Sun, in so-called extrasolar planets or exoplanets. Exoplanet atmospheres can be chemically extremely rich. Exoplanet clouds are therefor made of a mix of materials…
Large ground- and space-based telescopes will be able to observe Earth-like planets in the near future. We explore how different planetary surfaces can strongly influence the climate, atmospheric composition, and remotely detectable spectra…
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…
Characterizing the atmospheres of extrasolar planets is the new frontier in exoplanetary science. The last two decades of exoplanet discoveries have revealed that exoplanets are very common and extremely diverse in their orbital and bulk…
Phase curves are the best technique to probe the three dimensional structure of exoplanets' atmospheres. In this chapter we first review current exoplanets phase curve observations and the particular challenges they face. We then describe…
The study of exoplanetary atmospheres is one of the most exciting and dynamic frontiers in astronomy. Over the past two decades ongoing surveys have revealed an astonishing diversity in the planetary masses, radii, temperatures, orbital…
Unmixing the disk-integrated spectra of exoplanets provides hints about heterogeneous surfaces that we cannot directly resolve in the foreseeable future. It is particularly important for terrestrial planets with diverse surface compositions…
Most detected transiting planets have orbits which would fit within the one of Mercury, exposing them to intense stellar irradiation and interactions that significantly alter their properties. In contrast, colder planets with longer orbital…
Transiting exoplanets provide access to data to study the mass-radius relation and internal structure of extrasolar planets. Long-period transiting planets allow insight into planetary environments similar to the Solar System where, in…
This article reviews the emerging field of exo-geoscience, focusing on the geological and geophysical processes thought to influence the evolution and (eu)habitability of rocky exoplanets. We examine the possible roles of planetary…
Exoplanets, or planets outside our own solar system, have long been of interest to astronomers; however, only in the past two decades have scientists had the technology to characterize and study planets so far away from us. With advanced…
The past twenty years have revealed the diversity of planets that exist in the Universe. It turned out that most of exoplanets are different from the planets of our Solar System and thus, everything about them needs to be explored. Thanks…
Earth is the only planet known to harbor life and, as a result, the search for habitable and inhabited planets beyond the Solar System commonly focuses on analogs to our planet. However, Earth's atmosphere and surface environment have…
Over the last two decades, the discovery of exoplanets has fundamentally changed our perception of the universe and humanity's place within it. Recent work indicates that a solar system's X-ray and high energy particle environment is of…
The detection of massive planets orbiting nearby stars has become almost routine, but current techniques are as yet unable to detect terrestrial planets with masses comparable to the Earth's. Future space-based observatories to detect…
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…
I review the major open science questions in exoplanet atmospheres. These are mainly focused in the areas of understanding atmospheric physics, the atmosphere as a window into other realms of planetary physics, and the atmosphere is a…
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…
Transiting exoplanets provide detailed access to their atmospheres, as the planet's signal can be effectively separated from that of its host star. For transiting exoplanets three fundamental atmospheric measurements are possible:…