Related papers: Exoplanet Atmosphere Measurements from Direct Imag…
Young brown dwarfs and directly-imaged exoplanets have enticingly similar photometric and spectroscopic characteristics, indicating that their cool, low gravity atmospheres should be studied in concert. Similarities between the peculiar…
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…
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.…
The last few years has seen a dramatic increase in the number of exoplanets known and in the range of methods for characterising their atmospheric properties. At the same time, new discoveries of increasingly cooler brown dwarfs have pushed…
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…
In order to understand the atmospheres as well as the formation mechanism of giant planets formed outside our solar system, the next decade will require an investment in studies of isolated young brown dwarfs. In this white paper we…
The field of exoplanets is quickly expanding from just the detection of new planets and the measurement of their most basic parameters, such as mass, radius and orbital configuration, to the first measurements of their atmospheric…
Brown dwarfs are commonly regarded as easily-observed templates for exoplanet studies, with comparable masses, physical sizes and atmospheric properties. There is indeed considerable overlap in the photospheric temperatures of the coldest…
Over the past three decades instruments on the ground and in space have discovered thousands of planets outside the solar system. These observations have given rise to an astonishingly detailed picture of the demographics of short-period…
Direct observations of exoplanets probe the demographics and atmospheric composition of young self-luminous companions, yielding insight into their formation and early evolution history. In the near future, Gaia will reveal hundreds of…
In the last few years astronomical surveys have expanded the reach of planetary science into the realm of small and dense extrasolar worlds. These share a number of characteristics with the terrestrial and icy planetary objects of the Solar…
Direct measurements of the spectra of extrasolar giant planets are the keys to determining their physical and chemical nature. The goal of theory is to provide the tools and context with which such data are understood. It is only by putting…
Direct imaging and spectroscopy is the likely means by which we will someday identify, confirm, and characterize an Earth-like planet around a nearby Sun-like star. This Chapter summarizes the current state of knowledge regarding…
Within the next few years, GAIA and several instruments aiming at imag- ing extrasolar planets will see first light. In parallel, low mass planets are being searched around red dwarfs which offer more favourable conditions, both for radial…
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…
In the near future we will have ground- and space-based telescopes that are designed to observe and characterize Earth-like planets. While attention is focused on exoplanets orbiting main sequence stars, more than 150 exoplanets have…
The atmospheres of exoplanets reveal all their properties beyond mass, radius, and orbit. Based on bulk densities, we know that exoplanets larger than 1.5 Earth radii must have gaseous envelopes, hence atmospheres. We discuss contemporary…
With the first observations of debris disks as well as proposed planets around white dwarfs, the question of how rocky planets around such stellar remnants can be characterized and probed for signs of life becomes tangible. White dwarfs are…
Over the past decades, direct imaging has confirmed the existence of substellar companions (exoplanets or brown dwarfs) on wide orbits (>10 au) from their host stars. To understand their formation and evolution mechanisms, we have initiated…
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…