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The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will devote significant observing time to the study of exoplanets. It will not be serviceable as was the Hubble Space Telescope, and therefore the spacecraft/instruments will have a relatively limited…
With over 1800 planets discovered outside of the Solar System in the past two decades, the field of exoplanetology has broadened our perspective on planetary systems. Research priorities are now moving from planet detection to planet…
Although the extra-solar planets discovered so far are of the giant, gaseous, type, the increased sensitivity of future surveys will result in the discovery of lower mass planets. The detection of O2 in the atmosphere of a rocky extra-solar…
The physical characterization of exoplanets will require to take spectra at several orbital positions. For that purpose, a direct imaging capability is necessary. Direct imaging requires an efficient stellar suppression mechanism,…
Direct detection, also known as direct imaging, is a method for discovering and characterizing the atmospheres of planets at intermediate and wide separations. It is the only means of obtaining spectra of non-transiting exoplanets.…
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:…
Although there exists a large sample of known exoplanets, little spectroscopic data exists that can be used to study their global atmospheric properties. This deficiency can be addressed by performing phase-resolved spectroscopy --…
One of the most prolific methods of studying exoplanet atmospheres is transmission spectroscopy, which measures the difference between the depth of an exoplanet's transit signal at various wavelengths and attempts to correlate the depth…
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…
The Mid-Infrared instrument (MIRI) on board the James Webb Space Telescope will perform the first ever characterization of young giant exoplanets observed by direct imaging in the 5-28 microns spectral range. This wavelength range is key…
Exoplanetary science is among the fastest evolving fields of today's astronomical research. Ground-based planet-hunting surveys alongside dedicated space missions (Kepler, CoRoT) are delivering an ever-increasing number of exoplanets, now…
Transiting exoplanet atmospheric characterization is currently in a golden age as dozens of exoplanet atmospheres are being studied by NASA's Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes. This trend is expected to continue with NASA's Pandora…
In the next decades, the astrobiological community will debate whether the first observations of oxygen in an exoplanet$'$s atmosphere signifies life, so it is critical to establish procedures now for collection and interpretation of such…
Exploring exoplanets has transformed our understanding of the universe by revealing many planetary systems that defy our current understanding. To study their atmospheres, spectroscopic observations are used to infer essential atmospheric…
Transit-spectroscopy of exoplanets is one of the key observational techniques to characterize the extrasolar planet and its atmosphere. The observational challenges of these measurements require dedicated instrumentation and only the space…
The quest for other habitable worlds and the search for life among them are major goals of modern astronomy. One way to make progress towards these goals is to obtain high-quality spectra of a large number of exoplanets over a broad range…
The search for life on exoplanets is one of the grand scientific challenges of our time. The strategy to date has been to find (e.g., through transit surveys like Kepler) Earth-like exoplanets in their stars habitable zone, then use…
One of the big challenges in exoplanet science is to determine the atmospheric makeup of extrasolar planets, and to find biosignatures that hint at the existence of biochemical processes on another world. The biomarkers we are trying to…
It is possible to learn a great deal about exoplanet atmospheres even when we cannot spatially resolve the planets from their host stars. In this chapter, we overview the basic techniques used to characterize transiting exoplanets -…
A transiting planet invites us to measure its size, mass, orbital parameters, atmospheric composition, and other characteristics. But the invitation can only be accepted if the host star is bright enough for precise measurements of its flux…