Related papers: Highlights of Exoplanetary Science from Spitzer
For solar-system objects, ultraviolet spectroscopy has been critical in identifying sources for stratospheric heating and measuring the abundances of a variety of hydrocarbon and sulfur-bearing species, produced via photochemical…
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) has been designed in order to satisfy several different scientific objectives that can be addressed by a ten-year synoptic sky survey. However, LSST will also provide a large amount of data that…
Thanks to the advances in modern instrumentation we have learned about many exoplanets that span a wide range of masses and composition. Studying their atmospheres provides insight into planetary origin, evolution, dynamics, and…
We have collected transit times for the TRAPPIST-1 system with the Spitzer Space Telescope over four years. We add to these ground-based, HST and K2 transit time measurements, and revisit an N-body dynamical analysis of the seven-planet…
Short-period super-Earths and Neptunes are now known to be very frequent around solar-type stars. Improving our understanding of these mysterious planets requires the detection of a significant sample of objects suitable for detailed…
Long-period transiting exoplanets provide an opportunity to study the mass-radius relation and internal structure of extrasolar planets. Their studies grant insights into planetary evolution akin to the Solar System planets, which, in…
The extreme environments of transiting close-in exoplanets in highly-eccentric orbits are ideal for testing exo-climate physics. Spectroscopically resolved phase curves not only allow for the characterization of their thermal response to…
Here we describe the observations and the resulting constraints on the upper atmosphere (thermosphere and exosphere) of the "Hot-Jupiters". In particular, observations and theoretical modeling of Hot-Jupiter evaporation are described. The…
The analysis of exoplanetary atmospheres often relies upon the observation of transit or eclipse events. While very powerful, these snapshots provide mainly 1-dimensional information on the planet structure and do not easily allow precise…
Ultra-hot Jupiters offer interesting prospects for expanding our theories on dynamical evolution and the properties of extremely irradiated atmospheres. In this context, we present the analysis of new optical spectroscopy for the transiting…
We present new 3.6 and 4.5 micron secondary eclipse measurements for five cool (less than approximately 1000 K) transiting gas giant planets: HAT-P-15b, HAT-P-17b, HAT-P-18b, HAT-P-26b, and WASP-69b. We detect eclipses in at least one…
The measurement of the light scattered from extrasolar planets informs atmospheric and formation models. With the discovery of many hot Jupiter planets orbiting nearby stars, this motivates the development of robust methods of…
The discovery of the short-period giant exoplanet population, the so-called hot Jupiter population, and their link to brown dwarfs and low-mass stars challenges the conventional view of planet formation and evolution. We took advantage of…
We report detection of strong infrared thermal emission from the nearby (d=19 pc) transiting extrasolar planet HD189733b, by measuring the flux decrement during its prominent secondary eclipse. A 6-hour photometric sequence using Spitzer's…
The past two decades have seen a significant advancement in the detection, classification and understanding of exoplanets and binaries. This is due, in large part, to the increase in use of small-aperture telescopes (< 20 cm) to survey…
We discuss atmosphere models of HD209458b in light of the recent day-side flux measurement of HD209458b's secondary eclipse by Spitzer-MIPS at 24 microns. In addition, we present a revised secondary eclipse IRTF upper limit at 2.2 microns…
Extrasolar planets on eccentric short-period orbits provide a laboratory in which to study radiative and tidal interactions between a planet and its host star under extreme forcing conditions. Studying such systems probes how the planet's…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is expected to revolutionize the field of exoplanets. The broad wavelength coverage and the high sensitivity of its instruments will allow characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres with unprecedented…
We present here the results of our observations of TrES-2 using the Infrared Array Camera on Spitzer. We monitored this transiting system during two secondary eclipses, when the planetary emission is blocked by the star. The resulting…
Transmission spectroscopy is the most widely used technique for studying exoplanet atmospheres. Since the planetary nightside faces the observer during a transit, highly irradiated giant exoplanets with warm nightsides emit thermal…