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Reflected light curves observed for exoplanets indicate bright clouds at some of them. We estimate how the light curve and total stellar heating of a planet depend on forward and backward scattering in the clouds based on Pioneer and…
The search for extrasolar planets has already detected rocky planets and several planetary candidates with minimum masses that are consistent with rocky planets in the habitable zone of their host stars. A low-resolution spectrum in the…
New observational facilities are becoming increasingly capable of observing reflected light from transiting and directly imaged extrasolar planets. In this study, we provide an analytic framework to interpret observed phase curves,…
We consider the time-frequency analysis of a scattered light curve of a directly imaged exoplanet. We show that the geometric effect due to planetary obliquity and orbital inclination induce the frequency modulation of the apparent diurnal…
We present an overview of the EXoplanetary Circumstellar Environments and Disk Explorer (EXCEDE), selected by NASA for technology development and maturation. EXCEDE will study the formation, evolution and architectures of exoplanetary…
Exoplanet research focusing on the characterization of super-Earths is currently limited to those handful targets orbiting bright stars that are amenable to detailed study. This Letter proposes to look at alternative avenues to probe the…
Mapping exoplanets across phases and during secondary eclipse is a powerful technique for characterizing Hot Jupiters in emission. Since these planets are expected to rotate about axes normal to their orbital planes, with rotation periods…
When studying transiting exoplanets it is common to assume a spherical planet shape. However short rotational periods can cause a planet to bulge at its equator, as is the case with Saturn whose equatorial radius is almost 10% larger than…
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 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…
Solar System observations that serve as analogs for exoplanet remote sensing data can provide important opportunities to validate ideas and models related to exoplanet environments. Critically, and unlike true exoplanet observations, Solar…
One of the frontier research fields of exoplanetary science is the study of the composition and variability of exoplanetary atmospheres. This field is now moving from the gas giant planets towards the smaller and colder telluric planets,…
Exoplanet transmission spectra, which measure the absorption of light passing through a planet's atmosphere during transit, are most often assessed globally, resulting in a single spectrum per planetary atmosphere. However, the inherent…
The ultra-precise photometric space satellite MOST (Microvariability and Oscillations of STars) will provide the first opportunity to measure the albedos and scattered light curves from known short-period extrasolar planets. Due to the…
Static structure models, which map mass-radius constraints to bulk planet composition, are frequently used to categorise exoplanets due to their computational efficiency and the high-level insight they offer into planetary properties.…
The characterization of exoplanet atmospheres is one of the key topics in modern astrophysics. To date, transmission spectroscopy has been the primary method used, but upcoming instruments will lay the foundation for advancing…
The mutual orbital alignment in multiple planetary systems is an important parameter for understanding their formation. There are a number of elaborate techniques to determine the alignment parameters using photometric or spectroscopic…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will enable the search for and characterization of terrestrial exoplanet atmospheres in the habitable zone via transmission spectroscopy. However, relatively little work has been done to use solar…
We present a calibrated database of reflectance spectra for the solar system planets (i.e., Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) and for Titan, spanning from the ultraviolet to the near infrared. We considered data…
Direct imaging of widely separated exoplanets from space will obtain their reflected light spectra and measure atmospheric properties. Previous calculations have shown that a change in the orbital phase would cause a spectral signal, but…