Related papers: Exoplanet Atmosphere Measurements from Direct Imag…
Atmospheric escape from close-in Neptunes and hot Jupiters around sun-like stars driven by extreme ultraviolet (EUV) irradiation plays an important role in the evolution of exo-planets and in shaping their ensemble properties. Intermediate…
A planet's spectrum is dynamic and only represents a time-dependent snapshot of its properties. Changing atmospheric conditions due to climate and weather patterns, particularly variation in cloud cover, can significantly affect the…
HR 8799 harbors arguably the first and best-studied directly-imaged planets. In this brief article, I describe how the HR 8799 planetary system is a benchmark system for studying the atmospheres, orbital properties, dynamical stability, and…
Dozens of habitable zone, approximately earth-sized exoplanets are known today. An emerging frontier of exoplanet studies is identifying which of these habitable zone, small planets are actually habitable (have all necessary conditions for…
Exoplanet research has shown an incessant growth since the first claim of a hot giant planet around a solar-like star in the mid-1990s. Today, the new facilities are working to spot the first habitable rocky planets around low-mass stars as…
It is becoming clear that the atmospheres of the young, self-luminous extrasolar giant planets imaged to date are dusty. Planets with dusty atmospheres may exhibit detectable amounts of linear polarization in the near-infrared, as has been…
Giant exoplanets on wide orbits have been directly imaged around young stars. If the thermal background in the mid-infrared can be mitigated, then exoplanets with lower masses can also be imaged. Here we present a ground-based mid-infrared…
Thousands of transiting exoplanets have already been detected orbiting a wide range of host stars, including the first planets that could potentially be similar to Earth. The upcoming Extremely Large Telescopes and the James Webb Space…
Direct imaging allows for the detection and characterization of exoplanets via their thermal emission. We report the discovery via imaging of a young Jovian planet in a triple star system and characterize its atmospheric properties through…
As astronomers, we are living an exciting time for what concerns the search for other worlds. Recent discoveries have already deeply impacted our vision of planetary formation and architectures. Future bio-signature discoveries will…
Giant planets acquire gas, ices and rocks during the early formation stages of planetary systems and thus inform us on the formation process itself. Proceeding from inside out, examining the connections between the deep interiors and the…
The varied surfaces and atmospheres of planets make them interesting places to live, explore, and study from afar. Unfortunately, the great distance to exoplanets makes it impossible to resolve their disk with current or near-term…
An increasing number of potentially habitable terrestrial planets and planet candidates are found by ongoing planet search programs. The search for atmospheric signatures to establish planetary habitability and the presence of life might be…
Giant planets within the habitable zones of the closest several stars can currently be imaged with ground-based telescopes. Within the next decade, the Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) will begin to image the habitable zones of a greater…
Over the past 4 decades, the exploration of planets beyond our solar system has yielded the discovery of over 5600 exoplanets orbiting different stars. Continuous advancements in instrumentation and cutting-edge techniques empower…
For much of human history we have wondered how our solar system formed, and whether there are any other planets like ours around other stars. Only in the last 20 years have we had direct evidence for the existence of exoplanets, with the…
In this paper we discuss how we can read a planets spectrum to assess its habitability and search for the signatures of a biosphere. After a decade rich in giant exoplanet detections, observation techniques have now reached the ability to…
Infrared radiation emitted from a planet contains information about the chemical composition and vertical temperature profile of its atmosphere. If upper layers are cooler than lower layers, molecular gases will produce absorption features…
The occurrence rate of young giant planets from direct imaging surveys is a fundamental tracer of the efficiency with which planets form and migrate at wide orbital distances. These measurements have progressively converged to a value of…
Studying exoplanets with their parent stars is crucial to understand their population, formation and history. We review some of the key questions regarding their evolution with particular emphasis on giant gaseous exoplanets orbiting close…