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The increasing numbers of rocky, terrestrial exoplanets known to orbit nearby stars (especially M dwarfs) has drawn increased attention to the possibility of studying these planets' surface properties, and atmospheric compositions & escape…
We propose an algorithm that can be used by amateur astronomers to analyze the images acquired during solar eclipses. The proposed algorithm analyzes the image, detects the eclipse and produces results for parameters like magnitude of…
Measuring the albedo of an extrasolar planet provides insights into its atmospheric composition and its global thermal properties, including heat dissipation and weather patterns. Such a measurement requires very precise photometry of a…
Formation of hazes at microbar pressures has been explored by theoretical models of exoplanet atmospheres to explain Rayleigh scattering and/or featureless transmission spectra, however observational evidence of aerosols in the low pressure…
Exoplanet observations promise one day to unveil the presence of extraterrestrial life. Atmospheric compounds in strong chemical disequilibrium would point to large-scale biological activity just as oxygen and methane do in the Earth's…
We have searched for absorption in several common atomic species due to the atmosphere or exosphere of the transiting extrasolar planet HD 209458b, using high precision optical spectra obtained with the Subaru High Dispersion Spectrograph…
Terrestrial Solar System planets either have high mean molecular weight atmospheres, as with Venus, Mars, and Earth, or no atmosphere at all, as with Mercury. We do not have sufficient observational information to know if this is typical of…
An atmospheric transparency was measured using a LIDAR with a pulsed UV laser (355nm) at the observation site of Telescope Array in Utah, USA. The measurement at night for two years in $2007\sim 2009$ revealed that the extinction…
We perform Monte Carlo simulations of cosmic ray-induced hard X-ray radiation from the Earth's atmosphere. We find that the shape of the spectrum emergent from the atmosphere in the energy range 25-300 keV is mainly determined by Compton…
We report on novel observations of HAT-P-1 aimed at constraining the optical transmission spectrum of the atmosphere of its transiting Hot-Jupiter exoplanet. Ground-based differential spectrophotometry was performed over two transit windows…
In the near-future, atmospheric characterization of Earth-like planets in the habitable zone will become possible via reflectance spectroscopy with future telescopes such as the proposed LUVOIR and HabEx missions. While previous studies…
Light refracted by the planet's atmosphere is usually ignored in analysis of planetary transits. Here we show that refraction can add shoulders to the transit light curve, i.e., an increase in the observed flux, mostly just before and after…
Mars was observed in X-rays during April 3-5 2008 for 82 ksec with the Japanese Suzaku observatory. Mars has been known to emit X-rays via the scattering of solar X-rays and via the charge exchange between neutral atoms in the exosphere and…
Transmission spectroscopy enables the characterization of exoplanet atmospheres by probing absorption features in their terminator regions. In the optical, it is particularly sensitive to metal oxides and atomic species that can strongly…
The variation of the solar diameter is the subject of hot debates due to the possible effect on Earth climate and also due to different interpretations of long period solar variabilities, including the total solar irradiance. We shortly…
A model that combines celestial geometry and atmospheric physics is used to calculate the dimming of artificial satellites as they enter and exit the Earth's shadow. Refraction of sunlight by the terrestrial atmosphere can illuminate a…
The potential effect of the lunar exosphere on the near-ultraviolet sky background emission is predicted for Lunar-based Ultraviolet Telescope (LUT: a funded Chinese scientific payload for the Chang'e-III mission). Using the upper limit on…
Transmission spectroscopy during planetary transits is expected to be a major source of information on the atmospheres of small (approximately Earth-sized) exoplanets in the next two decades. This technique, however, is intrinsically…
We study the impact of multi-layered clouds (low-level water and high-level ice clouds) on the thermal emission spectra of Earth-like planets orbiting different types of stars. Clouds have an important influence on such planetary emission…
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…